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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27568132">Of Motion In Perpetuity</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings'>Beleriandings</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Torchwood</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Accidental Time Travel, Angst with a Happy Ending, Case Fic, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Lots of OCs - Freeform, M/M, Multi, Mystery, Plotty, Queer Themes, Team as Family, Time Travel, Torture, Victorian era, set between s2 and s3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-05-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-08 22:42:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>92,203</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27568132</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beleriandings/pseuds/Beleriandings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Gwen, Jack and Ianto investigate a cold case from end of the nineteenth century, they find themselves pulled back in time against their will, fighting to protect each other and to get home.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gwen Cooper/Rhys Williams, Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>600</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>154</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> <b>[Prologue: Then]</b> </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Ianto stood on the ledge, the fearful drop behind him, the constant roaring of the waterfall all too close. He could feel the spray coming up off it, blown cold against his back by the biting winter wind. The wind that was rising, stinging his hands and feet and cheeks, making him grit his teeth to keep them from starting to chatter. Or maybe that was the fear, he thought; the body naturally reacting to height and cold. And the rocks far beneath, on which the water hurled itself with crashing force. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>And the man with a gun that glinted under the moonlight, steadily advancing on him along the narrow parapet. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Over the the man’s shoulder, Ianto’s eyes met Jack’s; Jack also had his gun drawn, and was pointing it at the man with the pale hair, even paler eyes. “Don’t move” snarled Jack, face contorting with anger. “If you let any harm come to him, you better believe you and I are taking a little tumble down onto those rocks.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The man’s face was blank, impassive. “Sorry” he said. “That won’t be happening. You’re to be taken alive, Captain Harkness.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Jack grinned maniacally, in the moonlight. “Oh-ho” he said. “Now you’re giving me something to work with. Because if your master told you not to kill me… it seems to me like he doesn’t trust you. Wanna know why?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The man’s head turned very slowly towards him, though the gun still remained pointed at Ianto’s head. It did, however, give Ianto the chance to edge along the parapet along the spray-slippery stone. Away from the edge. </em>
</p><p>“<em>Not particularly” said the man firmly. “I am aware, Captain, that my master does not tell me all his business. I wouldn’t expect otherwise.”</em></p><p>
  <em>Jack shrugged, giving the man a cocky grin. “Just thought it might interest you” he said. “To hear that–”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Ianto didn’t wait to listen to whatever Jack was about to tell the man; he saw the chance, the distraction, and he took it. He lunged forward along the slippery parapet, grabbing at the wrist of the hand pointing the gun at him, twisting it around abruptly. It was always a good move he’d found, when people underestimated you; if they thought they had you cornered and terrified, they usually didn’t expect you to grab the gun they were pointing in your face. It had served him well before, and he hoped, this time–</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The man reacted, quicker than Ianto was expecting. The gun had fallen from his hand as he yelped in pain and shock, wrist clicking horribly under Ianto’s grip. But it didn’t make him falter for longer than a second even as Ianto swept the weapon aside, kicking it into the torrent of the waterfall below. But even as it went over the edge, the man was reacting, grabbing Ianto’s arm in his turn and wrenching it up behind his back. Ianto had just enough time to gasp out in pain before the man’s hand was fisting in the front of his shirt and backing him up against the edge. Ianto clung to his wrists, desperately trying to throw his weight back at the man. But he was too strong, broad and well-muscled with a bruising grip. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Behind him, Jack’s eyes met Ianto’s in horror; Jack started to move forwards, towards the two of them. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>But as he did, several things happened at once. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>It was like the world was moving in slow motion, as the man holding him grinned, and gave Ianto a slight, backwards push. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>He felt the world arc and spin, stars and moon wheeling overhead as he lost his balance on the slippery stone, arms going out as he fell backwards, but it was no good; he couldn’t catch his balance, he was going to fall…</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The very last thing he saw was Jack, running to the edge with horror and fury in his eyes, screaming Ianto’s name over the roar of the falls. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>But Ianto didn’t get more than a glimpse of him he tipped backwards, towards the rocks and freezing water far below. </em>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p>
  <em> <b>[Now]</b> </em>
</p><p> </p><p>It was too early, Gwen thought, rolling over in bed to flail blindly at the phone currently vibrating off the bedside table. On the second grab she succeeded in knocking it to the floor. She pushed herself up with a groan, blinking against the light to grab it properly; the screen told her the time – as she had thought, far too early – and exactly who was calling.</p><p>“Gwen Cooper!” singsonged Jack’s voice on the other end of the line. “Wakey wakey!”</p><p>“This better be bloody good, Jack” she growled, pushing her sleep-mussed hair from her eyes.</p><p>“Oh, it is! We’re going on a field trip. Don’t forget your wellies and warm socks!”</p><p>She glared, wishing he could see the expression down the phone line. “It’s half four in the morning!”</p><p>“Yeah, well. Ianto’s already started the coffee, if it’s any consolation.”</p><p>“...What’s going on, Jack?” Now she was more awake, she was able to think through things a bit more. “I didn’t get a Rift alert.”</p><p>“That’s ‘cause it’s not a Rift alert. ...Well, not the usual kind anyway” he said. And then, before she could protest that maybe it could wait until it was light, “...but it <em>is</em> urgent. C’mon, I’ll explain when you get here.”</p><p>She gritted her teeth, reaching back to stroke Rhys’s hair apologetically as he rolled over, beginning to wake up. “<em>Ughhh</em>, okay. Be over there in twenty minutes. Ask Ianto to add an extra shot to my usual.”</p><p>“I assumed” came Ianto’s muffled voice from somewhere behind Jack, it sounded like.</p><p>“You’re a star, Ianto” she said, scrambling out of bed and beginning to feel blindly for the chest of drawers, trying to find some clothes without turning on the light. “Got you up early too, I guess?”</p><p>She heard Jack’s smirk in his voice. “Could say that. The Rift readings were more a hindrance to that though, than the reason for it.”</p><p>She rolled her eyes. “Be there in a bit, Jack. Unfortunately.”</p><p>“See you soon, Gwen.”</p><p>“Mmmph.” She hung up, passing a hand over her face.</p><p>As she did, Rhys clicked on the light behind her. “Everything okay, love?”</p><p>She sighed. “Think so. But I need to go into work.”</p><p>“Bloody Torchwood” said Rhys sleepily, flopping back against the pillows. “Ah well. Say hullo to the aliens for me.”</p><p>She chuckled, leaning down and kissing him swiftly; his hand caught her arm, playfully trying to keep her there. “It’s your day off, isn’t it? You in tonight?”</p><p>He shook his head. “Probably going down the pub with Daf and Banana. Rugby tonight.”</p><p>“Aw. Well, have a good one.” She sighed, wondering if this was going to take all day; maybe she could join Rhys later. But since Jack had mentioned a field trip, she didn’t hold out much hope.</p><p>“Go on then” said Rhys, giving her hand a squeeze. “Say hi to Ianto for me. ...And also say to Jack, what the bloody hell d’you think you’re doing, dragging my wife off at the crack of dawn?”</p><p>She laughed, squeezing his hand. “Love you.”</p><p>He smiled too, big and sleepy. “Love you too. Now, off with you! I’ll still be here when you get home.”</p><hr/><p>When Gwen got to the Hub, she found Ianto already in the conference room, going through case files. Spread across the table in front of him were an open laptop, an Ordnance Survey map of what looked like half of Wales unfolded and held down with an open box of pastries and cups of coffee at all of their three places, curls of steam rising up from them. Ianto really was getting eerily good at timing her commute, Gwen thought. “Morning, Ianto.”</p><p>He barely looked up, but he did smile a bit. “Morning.”</p><p>“Rhys says hello” she said, sitting down in her place. “Where’s Jack?”</p><p>“Getting dressed. He’ll be along in a bit. Coffee?”</p><p>She nodded gratefully and took a sip of her capuccino. “Oh, this is divine, thanks” she sighed. She looked Ianto up and down, then frowned. He wasn’t wearing his usual suit, but jeans and a dark canvas jacket. “Ready for this field trip, then?”</p><p>“Yep” said Ianto. “Jack says it’s about an hour’s drive. I’ll make us sandwiches for the way.”</p><p>Gwen frowned. “Where are we actually going?”</p><p>Before Ianto could answer, they heard a voice behind them from the door. “Just out of Ystradfellte, in the Beacons. Carrington Castle. Won’t show up on your maps, and don’t bother googling it” said Jack, coming around to take his place at the table and helping himself to a pastry. “Officially, it doesn’t exist.”</p><p>“Carrington?” said Gwen. “Doesn’t sound Welsh.”</p><p>“That’s what I said” said Ianto. “It’s because it’s not. ...Tourists.”</p><p>“Yep” said Jack, through a mouthful of pastry. “London industrialist in the nineteenth century, guy called Sir Frederick Carrington. Made his fortune in coal and moved out here, built himself his own pretty little fake-medieval castle to retire to before the age of forty. That’s Victorians for you. Been abandoned since the turn of the century.”</p><p>“Okay, so...” said Gwen. “What’s it got to do with us?”</p><p>“This” said Ianto, pushing one of the files forward across the table. “Torchwood cold case from 1899.”</p><p>“That’s <em>really</em> cold.” She opened the file, finding herself faced with handwritten case reports on yellowing paper. “What happened?”</p><p>“I wasn’t directly involved” said Jack. “But back in the winter of 1899, we started getting weird energy readings we eventually traced to that region. Rift frequencies.”</p><p>“But...” said Gwen, frowning and exchanging a look with Ianto, feeling a flicker of trepidation as she remembered their last experience out in the Brecon Beacons, “I thought we’d established the Rift doesn’t spread out that far?”</p><p>“Exactly” said Jack. “It was an anomaly. So back in 1899, we sent a few agents out to the closest village – tiny little place, didn’t even have a name and basically only existed to house Carrington’s staff and their families – to ask around, but came up empty. Even sent people to talk to Carrington himself, but nothing came up; we never got an explanation. Then on the twelfth of December of that year, the Rift traces reached their peak. The same night Carrington was reported missing. The search teams never found his body.”</p><p>“So, he was taken by the Rift?”</p><p>Jack shrugged. “Could’ve been. Never quite found out exactly what happened that night, but we do know a servant at the house died. There was an article about it in the local newspaper at the time… the house is built beside a waterfall, and they found the body in the river, floating down to the village. We don’t know anything else, <em>except</em>...” Jack raised an eyebrow. “After that, the Rift energy readings suddenly stopped.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“No idea” said Jack. “No one ever figured out what had caused them in the first place.”</p><p>“The thinking at the time was that it was a data blip, or a problem with the measurements” said Ianto. “The death and the disappearance could easily have been a coincidence, and without any more information...” he shrugged.</p><p>“So the case was shelved” said Gwen.</p><p>“Yep.”</p><p>“Why bring it up now? Why drag me out of bed at a frankly horrible time of the morning?” she couldn’t quite stop the resentment from creeping into her voice.</p><p>“Because” said Jack, “those energy readings have started up again. Ianto?”</p><p>Ianto turned the laptop to face her. “After that night, Torchwood didn’t just leave the place completely alone; they installed permanent Rift monitors all around the whole area, continuously recording for the entire twentieth century. And there was nothing, not even a blip… until last night.”</p><p>Gwen squinted at the screen, looking at the graphs Ianto was showing her. She had a better grasp of reading Rift data now, but she wished that Tosh was here; she was always better at this, intuitive. But Gwen could tell when something was off. “These readings… these aren’t normal Rift flares.”</p><p>“Nope” said Ianto, brows knitting a little with worry. “Very… spiky.”</p><p>“Positive and negative spikes too” said Jack grimly.</p><p>“Shit” said Gwen. “That means things can go through in both directions.”</p><p>“Exactly” said Jack, throwing back the last of his coffee. “Now d’you see why I called you out this early?”</p><p>“Yeah” she said, thinking of Flat Holm. “Yeah, I do.”</p><p>Jack put down his cup and stood up. “So, we’re gonna go check it out. Ianto, pack the full Rift monitoring kit, the good scanners, and anything else you think we might need in the SUV. Also, snacks for the journey.”</p><p>“On it.”</p><p>Jack nodded, briefly touching his shoulder as Ianto got up to clear away the cups before turning to her. “Gwen, Ianto’s already forwarded the archive files to your PDA, you can read them as we go. You’re on research duty; I want you reading up on all the background, see if we can get some solid context for this. Profiles of people involved at the time, all that. Do what you do best.”</p><p>She nodded as they left the room, pulling out her PDA. It didn’t take long to find the digital archive file Ianto had sent over. She opened it, paging through scanned documents, Rift readings, looking for something that might help.</p><p>As she did, she wondered about the people involved; it was over a hundred years ago, but it always felt like this looking over old cases; she couldn’t help but think about the lives they’d lived, especially if those lives had been cut short because of something Torchwood might have been able to prevent.</p><p>Gwen was finishing off the last of her coffee, paging through mission reports and marked-up maps, when something caught her attention. A scan of an old column, apparently from a local newspaper. She squinted at it, the old-fashioned type lumpy and uneven where it had been scanned and blown up to screen size.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> <b>Drowning at Carrington Castle!</b> </em>
</p><p>
  <em>In the early hours of Tuesday the 12th of December, 1899, the body of a man was pulled from the waters of Carrington Castle mill race, off the river Hepste. The man has been identified as one Mr. I. Jones, 25 years of age, who was serving as a groom for Sir Frederick Carrington’s guests that evening. It is thought that Jones entered the waters at the Castle by tragic accident and was overwhelmed by the current and the winter chill. Following this his body was surely drawn down the river over the falls, according to local constabulary at the scene. No foul play was in evidence, and the cause of death has been ruled as accidental drowning. [Cont'd. pg. 11]</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Gwen read the clipping, the small black type pressing against her eyes, imprinting itself there. Then she read it again, peering carefully at the date once more, making sure she hadn’t got it wrong. It had been published on the morning of 13th of December, 1899.</p><p>She realised she was clutching the PDA very tightly, as her eyes ran again and again over the name. <em>I. Jones. 25 years of age</em>.</p><p><em>Coincidence</em>, she thought a moment later, as her rational mind kicked in. <em>Just coincidence; it’s a common name, after all</em>. Not that she wholly believed in coincidence anymore. Not since joining Torchwood.</p><p>But equally, her life was like this now; after losing Owen and Tosh she was all the more vigilant, all the more protective over Ianto, the other of them who could still die. Little things like this could easily set off her grief, her fear of losing him too.</p><p>Not that she was going to lose anyone, she told herself sternly. Just because some poor man with the same surname and initial as Ianto had died a century ago, that was no reason to go to pieces. Gwen frowned, realising the case of the PDA was biting into her hand, not quite able to loosen her grip.</p><p>She was just about to flick through the file to see if anyone had scanned the rest of the article, when she heard Ianto’s voice behind her.</p><p>“Gwen? Jack says he’s waiting in the car for us.”</p><p>She started, and nearly dropped the PDA as Ianto appeared near-soundlessly at her elbow. She just managed to fumble it to her chest, mercifully hiding the screen before he could see anything.</p><p>Ianto gave her an odd look. “...Something wrong?”</p><p>“...’Course not! Fine, just fine.” Gwen forced a smile, slipping the PDA into her jacket pocket and pulling the zip. She took his arm and followed him to the car. “Let’s go sort this out.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Gwen. ...Gwen?”</p><p>Gwen raised her head at the sound of her name, realising at once that she’d been staring at the same piece of scanned newsprint for several minutes now as Jack drove them along the motorway. On the screen in front of her was the second part of the article she’d been reading earlier. It read:</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> <b>Drowning at Carrington Castle!</b> </em>
</p><p>
  <em>[Cont’d. from pg. 2] According to eye witness accounts, it was one of Sir Carrington’s guests who had been visiting that evening from Cardiff, a military officer, who entered the mill race and pulled the body of Mr. Jones from the frigid waters. Once upon the embankment, the man was reported to have attempted to resuscitate Jones to no avail. However, this account has not been confirmed; the man in question has not been identified, and, indeed, was not seen again following the incident.<br/>
Jones’s next of kin have been informed by local constabulary. An inquest will be held in due course, once inquiries into the disappearance of Sir Frederick Carrington have been completed. [See main story, pg. 1.]</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Um… Gwen...?”</p><p>She shook herself, forcing herself to focus and meet Ianto’s eye; he had craned around from the passenger seat of the SUV and was peering at her in mild concern. “Sorry, love… what is it?”</p><p>“Just wanted to know if you wanted some more coffee, while I’ve got the thermos out.”</p><p>“Oh, thanks” she said, smiling as he poured her a cup and passed it into the back of the car to her. “Um. Guess I need it, I just blanked out for a moment there.”</p><p>Jack smirked at her in the mirror. “Research going well, huh?”</p><p>“Kind of. I’ve learned a bit about the area.”</p><p>“Good. That’ll help.”</p><p>“So, you haven’t been here before?” Gwen asked Jack, trying to keep her tone casual; there was a possibility she was keen to eliminate. “When Torchwood investigated in 1899, I mean.”</p><p>“Not me personally, no” said Jack. “I worked on contract for Torchwood then… one job at a time. I wasn’t assigned to this case myself, I only heard the other agents of the time talking about it. And read the report, afterwards.”</p><p>“Feels strange, thinking about a time when you weren’t the boss” mused Gwen. “What was Torchwood like back then, anyway?”</p><p>Jack’s face froze for a moment. “...Different” he said, a little stiffly. “Alice and Emily were in charge. They’d send me wherever they needed someone with my… skill set.” Gwen watched Ianto frown from the side, clearly trying to parse the emotions tracking across Jack’s face. But in another moment, Jack was gesturing out the window, face easing into a smile again. “Hey look, it’s the village” he said. “We’re nearly there.”</p><p>“Oh, finally” said Gwen, taking a sip of coffee.</p>
<hr/><p>Ianto peered out of the passenger side window at the village, seeing a few derelict houses, a broken-down mill wheel, what looked like a pub with its roof in bad need of repair. There appeared to be no one around; the road in front of them had turned to dirt track some time ago, but here it was uneven and overgrown with patchy grass. “Doesn’t look like much of a village.”</p><p>“It looks abandoned” said Gwen.</p><p>“It is” said Jack. “The village was mostly filled with the families of the castle staff. When Carrington died and the castle was abandoned, they just… left, one by one. No point in staying. ...Also I’m pretty sure someone from Torchwood stopped by with a decent financial incentive to leave. Didn’t want too many people nearby, in case the Rift started acting up in the area again.”</p><p>Ianto nodded. “So, we’re not going about this by asking around then.”</p><p>“Nope” said Jack, turning the car around a natural bend, the road following the bank of a fast-rushing river. “The plan is, go up to the castle and take a look around. Check the Rift monitors Torchwood placed there for faults, scan for Rift energy with our own equipment. Look for anything out of the ordinary. If we find it… either deal with it, or take it home with us.”</p><p>“Ingenious” said Ianto, raising his eyebrow slightly and hearing Gwen chuckle. “A tactical masterpiece.”</p><p>Jack gave him a look. “Got a better plan?”</p><p>“Admittedly, no.”</p><p>“Well then.” Jack smiled, as they rounded a bend in the stream. “Should be able to see the castle soon… oh! There it is.”</p><p>Ianto’s remark died on his lips and he heard Gwen gasp as they turned the corner, emerging from the slight hollow by the river into the valley proper. The landscape was grassy and rolling, an impressive mountainous valley. The peaks stretched up from the green valley floor, craggy and dark by the time they disappeared into the low layer of wintery mist sitting heavy over the landscape. But none of that was what Ianto was looking at; the thing that really drew the eye was the waterfall, hurling itself in white rills and torrents from a cleft in the rock high above between two crags, to tumble near-vertically downwards into the many streams of the river whose path they were following.</p><p>And halfway up the side of the mountain, right beside the apex of the waterfall, there was a castle built half in a hollow in the rock, half buttressed to the face of the cliff itself, a switchback path snaking up to meet it. It looked a little forbidding, all greyish-dark stone, but even from this distance Ianto could see its state of disrepair, several of its parapets and towers crumbling at the tops.</p><p>“<em>Whoa</em>” said Ianto, staring. “...How much money did that man have to burn?”</p><p>“A lot” said Jack. “Speaking of which, Gwen, care to brief us on Carrington? From that background reading you’ve been doing?”</p><p>“Oh” said Gwen, looking a little perturbed. “Um, yeah, hang on. <em>Some</em> people were being distracting on the journey. Hmm okay, here we go. Sir Frederick Carrington, born fourth of May 1855, Kensington, London. Old money family, went to Eton and then Oxford, the whole lot. Was something of an amateur inventor, published in scientific journals on machines and engines and things. His wife’s name was Charlotte, can’t find much information on her here but seems like she was an heiress too, brought him a lot of money when he married her in 1884. Invested their combined fortunes in Welsh coal mining, got even more stinking rich… seems like his company was responsible for a fair number of accidents, but no one was ever charged, of bloody course.” She frowned. “Frederick and Charlotte Carrington had two children, Ada and Maxwell. ...Charlotte and both children died in 1893, when an outbreak of typhoid struck the area. The man never remarried, basically a recluse until that night he disappeared in 1899.”</p><p>“Could his disappearance have been suicide?” Ianto wondered aloud. “Widower left alone in his empty castle, next to the biggest waterfall in Wales you’ve never heard of. It’s pretty plausible they just never found the body, I reckon. ...Oh, and the servant could’ve even died trying to save him.”</p><p>Gwen stared at him for a moment and winced. Ianto frowned, opening his mouth to ask if she was okay, when Jack interrupted.</p><p>“Good theory, but what about the Rift traces?”</p><p>“Well, like you said, it could be unrelated.”</p><p>Jack raised an eyebrow at him. “You really think it’s a coincidence?”</p><p>“...I s’pose it’s unlikely” conceded Ianto. “Gwen? Theories?”</p><p>“Um...” she was frowning down at her PDA again, clutching it very tightly as she had before. She looked tense, Ianto thought. “...Jack, you’re sure you weren’t involved in this case at the time?”</p><p>“Nope, sorry” Jack said, darting a look back at her. “Sure would make this easier, but no. I heard about what had happened the next day, when I got into the Hub in the morning” said Jack, shifting gear as he started up the switchback. “I didn’t live there then. Rented a tiny room above a gin bar close by. ...Run by a lovely Vinvocci lady called Rosemary, that Torchwood had got settled and running her own business. You’d’ve liked her. Such lovely people, the Vinvocci. Mind the spines though, they do it for some people but those things can really irritate sensitive areas.”</p><p>“Alright! Did not need to know about that” said Gwen, wincing. “Really, really, did <em>not</em> need to know about that.”</p><p>“I’ve got Retcon on me” said Ianto.</p><p>She chuckled. “Aw, brilliant Ianto. Crack open that thermos of coffee to wash it down and let’s share around the brain bleach.”</p><p>“Hey, hey” Jack was saying, with a laugh. “Since when are you two so prudish, huh?”</p><p>“It’s too early in the morning to be talking about what aliens irritate your sensitive areas.” She looked a bit more relaxed now, Ianto thought; maybe her tense mood earlier had just been tiredness.</p><p>“...Aaaand we’re here” put in Ianto, as Jack stopped the car at the courtyard at the top of the switchback. “Perfect timing.”</p><p>Jack gave a theatrical sigh. “And here I was about to tell you about the time a Pyrovile and a Raxacoricofallapatorian walked into that bar. Ah well, one for the way home I guess.”</p><p>“Dunno why we can’t just play I-spy like normal people...”</p><p>“You’re fighting a losing battle there, Gwen” Ianto told her, tying his scarf around his neck.</p><p>She laughed. “Ah, never mind then. Let’s go look around.”</p>
<hr/><p>Gwen squinted up at the towers and battlements pushing up against the grey-white clouds that hung low and heavy in the sky, pulling her jacket closer around her as the wind blew her hair around. It was noticeably colder up here, and she was already feeling a little envious of the thickly knitted hat and scarf and extra jumper and sensible coat that Ianto had put on when they got out of the SUV. Even Jack had deigned to fully button up his greatcoat against the windchill. Still, there was a stair that led up to the castle beyond the highest point you could drive to, and walking up the high risers was already warming her up a little.</p><p>“So, why’s this place not crawling with tourists then? It’s close to the city – kind of – it’s… old and historical… you’d think it’d be full of visitors.” Gwen eyed the empty entranceway, still some way ahead. “You’d think there’d be a gift shop, right there.” She elbowed Ianto lightly in the side. “Hmm, Mister Welsh Tourist Board?”</p><p>“...I don’t know” said Ianto, frowning like it bothered him. “I’d never even heard of this place before today. And I checked before we left… it’s not listed by either Cadw or the National Trust as one of their sites, like other castles and stately homes from the period. Doesn’t seem to be any record of it on the internet. The place doesn’t even come up on military satellite imaging databases.”</p><p>“That’s because of Torchwood too” put in Jack, circling back from up ahead to come stand in front of them as they reached the top of the stairs, in front of the arched gatehouse and staring up at it; it looked even more forbidding up close. “Back in the last few years of the nineteenth century, we had this place wiped from the records. Tourism was picking up with the railways, and like I said, we didn’t want visitors crawling all over it when there were still Rift traces all over the place.”</p><p>“Well, that would explain it” said Ianto, raising his eyebrows as they walked in through the entranceway to the courtyard. He looked around, hands in his pockets, squinting up at the ivy and mildew and general disrepair. “Not very well maintained, but no one’s chipping bits off the masonry to take home in their pockets, so I suppose it all balances out.”</p><p>“You win some, you lose some” said Jack, pulling out a scanner and gesturing for Ianto and Gwen to do the same. “C’mon, let’s search the place for Rift traces, and anything else out of the ordinary. Also, make sure the Rift monitors are still working. We’ll check the ones in the surrounding area later, but there are six in the castle itself; two in the cellar system, two on the roof, and one each on the east and west sides of the central courtyard. Ianto, up the stairs in the west corner, search the rooms running around the courtyard. Gwen, down to the cellars. I’ll take the roof.”</p><p>“Of course you will.”</p><p>Jack grinned. “Meet you back here in...” he checked his watch. “However long it takes before we figure out what the hell is going on.”</p><p>“Wait!” Both Jack and Ianto turned and looked at Gwen, as she reached out and grabbed their arms. She opened her mouth, looking first at Jack then Ianto, who was frowning at her.</p><p>She didn’t really know how to voice what it was that was bothering her; the article she’d read had shaken her up earlier, but it was more a vague, uneasy foreboding than a fear of anything concrete. But in that moment rationality kicked in again; there were plenty of young men called Jones, and plenty of military officers at the end of the nineteenth century. Besides, if Torchwood had taught Gwen anything, it was that echoes of other times, other stories sometimes seeped through the gaps in reality, with no effect on the present; history was indeed occasionally wont to repeat itself.</p><p>Besides, standing there between her two best friends, their little team, she didn’t feel so worried anymore. She wasn’t even sure what she’d been planning to say, but what came out of her mouth was, “just… stay safe, yeah? Both of you.”</p><p>Ianto clasped his hand over hers on his arm and nodded. Jack gave her a big smile. “Only if you do too.”</p><p>Somewhat reassured, Gwen nodded and headed for the cellars.</p>
<hr/><p>Jack stood on the roof, staring down at the valley. He’d already checked one Rift monitor and then the other; they seemed to be in perfect working order. Now he was holding a scanner up and making a slow circuit around the parapet. But he couldn’t help but pause to look down at the view as the chilly wind picked up; even with all he’d seen in his long life, the Welsh countryside was breathtaking, and made even more so with the grey clouds lowering overhead that spoke of coming rain, making the green of the valley floor seem unnaturally vivid in comparison. He couldn’t quite see the waterfall from where he was standing, its powerful torrent blocked from view by the spire in the eastern corner. But he could certainly hear and feel it, as you could everywhere in this place, a deep, thundering vibration that was less a sound and more a feeling in your very bones.</p><p>It made him think of flight, the thunder of a ship’s engines as you took off into the atmosphere. Jack missed his old ship sometimes, just as he missed so many things; when you’d lived as long as he had, small and seemingly random things tended to set off bouts of nostalgia. Some of it was meaningless, simple sense memory. <em>But some of it</em>…</p><p>Jack frowned, feeling the chill slightly and pulling his coat closer around him. Maybe it was just because one of their old cases had resurfaced, but he found himself remembering Alice and Emily, and his early days at Torchwood. He’d been a lot worse off then; this case reminded him of the day after Carrington’s disappearance, when the Hub had been all abuzz with it for weeks, the others arguing about what to do next, and what could have happened.</p><p>Not that Jack had paid much attention at the time; that day, he remembered, he’d woken up in his tiny, damp room above Rosemary’s place with a blinding hangover, a familiar and profound sense of loneliness, and not even a single hot stranger in his bed to take the edge off either. Not that that was particularly rare, back then. He hadn’t been doing well in those days, drinking himself into unconsciousness – or actual death – half the time, starting fights and fucking people whose names and faces were indistinguishable, letting people hurt him just to try to feel something. Eager for the missions Torchwood sent him out on because usually he got sent out as the vanguard, the one who was supposed to die in the line of fire. But Jack had accepted it then; he’d still been lacking a purpose, still struggling to deal with the Doctor abandoning him.</p><p>His life had changed so much since then, Jack though as he finished scanning the parapet, and most of that was in the last few years. He had his team now, and though it was small and broken and all-too-recently torn apart by grief and loss, he meant to hold onto what remained with everything he had.</p><p>Which meant Gwen and Ianto. He smiled softly, thinking of the two of them this morning; Ianto with his sleepy eyes when Jack had woken him up, his knitted hat and his thermos of coffee and his quiet laugh. Gwen grumbling but dragging herself away from Rhys to come work this case with them, because they were her people too, the ones she had left.</p><p>Yes, the three of them might be okay, Jack thought. It may hurt now, but in time they could heal from the deaths of Tosh and Owen. Or so he hoped. There’d be a future for those two, Jack vowed to himself as he took one last look over the valley; for Gwen with Rhys, and maybe they’d have a family of their own one day. And for Ianto… well. Jack harbored certain <em>hopes</em> that he didn’t always dare indulge, where Ianto was concerned. Hopes for things that experience had told him were impossible for him to have, one too many times. But still, he wanted them with Ianto; he couldn’t help it, not with the bright warm well of that thing Jack didn’t dare name that showed clearly in Ianto’s eyes whenever he looked at him.</p><p>Speaking of which… Jack smiled, satisfied that he’d finished his scans. He was the boss, and he thought he’d earned the right to go find Ianto for a mid-morning break.</p>
<hr/><p>Ianto sighed, cracking open another door that felt like it hadn’t been touched for decades. Dust exploded into the air and for a moment he thought he’d sneeze, but he only found himself in another bedroom. He shivered in a sudden cold breeze; the window was smashed in this room, ivy curling inside from the courtyard. He went over to the window, running his thumb over the ragged edge of the glass; it was still rather sharp, but not sharp enough to cut his skin. Done a long time ago maybe, lashed by the wind and weather. The scant remaining furniture and the ancient floorboards in this room were thickened and warped, damp with mildew, speaking of the rain that had been pouring in.</p><p>He’d been all around the courtyard now, exploring all the rooms whose doors he could get through; he’d picked a few locks, but some were so badly rusted shut it had been easier to judiciously apply brute force to the rotting wood.</p><p>He’d managed to find the Rift monitors easily; both of them were working fine, as far as Ianto could see. He’d even picked up a few faint Rift traces on his scanner, of the residual kind that were usually left in the wake of a Rift event. Not that it looked like the usual Rift data; once again the signal was uneven and noisy, which would have made him second-guess the reliability of the scanner he was using if he hadn’t checked over all their kit personally before they’d left this morning.</p><p>It was all very odd, Ianto thought. And possibly a wild goose chase. He sighed, pointing his scanner around the room, over an empty bedframe, a broken chair, the ancient table under the window that was covered in ivy, spilling in from the broken panes.</p><p>And then, Ianto heard a noise from behind him. He whirled, drawing his gun at the sudden flash of movement, only to see–</p><p>“Jack.” He lowered his gun quickly, shoulders slumping with relief, rolling his eyes and letting out his breath as he saw the familiar figure coming in the door Ianto had just broken open.</p><p>Jack was grinning at him. “Sorry. Did I scare you?”</p><p>Ianto gave him a withering look. “Hardly.”</p><p>Jack chuckled, coming up to him. “Doing a thorough job, huh?”</p><p>“More so than you, apparently” said Ianto, tucking his scanner in his coat pocket and letting Jack slip his arms around his middle, despite his very cursory protest. “How was the roof?”</p><p>“Nothing to report” said Jack, voice lowering as he leaned into Ianto’s space. “Monitors seem to be fine, but no Rift traces. You?”</p><p>“Faint ones” said Ianto. “Maybe it’s stronger the further down you go.”</p><p>Jack raised an eyebrow, and Ianto knew they probably wouldn’t get much more work done for a while. “Oh, I could listen to you talk about going down all day.”</p><p>Ianto rolled his eyes, but melted into Jack’s embrace. Jack’s innuendos were ridiculous, yes, but Ianto had long since resigned himself to the fact that they absolutely worked on him. Jack kissed him, pushing him up against the table; Ianto let him, despite his misgivings about the damp, mildewed wood pressing against the back of his jacket. He raised his hand, bringing it up and twining his fingers through Jack’s hair at the back. Jack made a soft little growl into his mouth, making Ianto’s blood race as he kissed him, his other hand clenched on the lapel of Jack’s coat.</p><p>It wasn’t long before Jack’s thigh was slipping between his legs, and Ianto was grinding against it; it was with great reluctance that he pulled away from the kiss. “We should… find Gwen” he gasped, slightly undercutting his point with how wrecked his voice sounded, even to his own estimation.</p><p>“She’s fine” Jack purred against his lips. “Investigating the cellars… should take a while.” His hand came down to cup the front of Ianto’s trousers, dropping down onto his knees on the dusty floor to talk against the zip at the front; Ianto slightly regretted wearing jeans, because they were starting to feel distinctly tight. “Not that you will right now, I’d guess.”</p><p>Ianto thought vaguely of attempting some token protest; the appearance of trying to get work done was just as important as the actual doing of it. Or something. Probably. A moment later he abandoned this train of thought, fully giving in and canting his hips forward as Jack’s fingers went for his belt buckle.</p><p>And at that moment, Ianto’s earpiece beeped. Ianto swore under his breath, as Jack’s hand left him, reacting quicker than Ianto to press the button on his earpiece. “Gwen?!?” said Jack, and Ianto felt rather validated by the fact that Jack’s voice sounded as husky and flustered as he was sure his own would right now. “Uh-huh.” There was a short silence as Jack listened, face immediately going serious. “Right. Be there in a minute. Yeah, he’s here with me. No, we weren’t – okay, okay, you got me.” Jack chuckled, raising an eyebrow at Ianto. “Yeah, we’ll be down in a moment.”</p><p>Jack turned back to him, offering Ianto a hand up and an apologetic expression, before reaching around and giving Ianto’s backside a conciliatory squeeze. “Sorry, Mister Jones. We gotta save it for later. Gwen’s found something in the cellars.”</p><p>“Of course” sighed Ianto regretfully, as Jack turned around with a dramatic swirl of his coat.</p><p>But despite this, he couldn’t do anything else but follow him out of the door.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ianto was already scanning for Rift energy as they walked down the stone steps to the cellar system, following Jack as he came up behind Gwen. Jack laid a hand on her shoulder. “What’ve you found?”</p><p>She held up her torch, shining light on the floor so they could all see the ancient cast-iron trapdoor in the flag stones. “There are Rift traces everywhere here. But I think this is the epicentre” she said, and Ianto’s scans told him she was right; the whole cellar was filled with the telltale energy residue that usually lingered after a Rift flare, and they’d got thicker the closer he’d come to the trapdoor. But he frowned; something seemed off about the readings. “These Rift traces” he said. “Is it me or are they all...” he made a vague motion with his hand. “Clumpy. Spotty. ...Popcorny.”</p><p>“Those technical terms, are they?” chuckled Gwen.</p><p>“Yep.”</p><p>Jack had taken out his own scanner and was peering at it now. “Yeah, I noticed it in the readings before too. Usually you’d have a single fissure pattern, where the Rift’s been open and closed over again… like a scar left by a healed tear. These are more like…”</p><p>“Punctures?” suggested Ianto.</p><p>“Maybe?”</p><p>“...What would that mean?” said Gwen.</p><p>“Don’t know” said Jack, putting away his scanner and getting out his own torch instead; he turned the beam on the trapdoor. “This is the centre of it, you said?”</p><p>“Seems to be. ...Or at least, something down there is.”</p><p>Jack nodded slowly, waggling his eyebrows at Ianto. “Looks like you were right about going down.”</p><p>“The real question is, when am I not?”</p><p>Before Jack’s smirk had even fully spread across his face Gwen was giving them both a vaguely disappointed look, snapping her fingers in front of their eyes. “Oi. Focus up, boys.” She nodded at the trapdoor. “Help me with this thing?”</p><p>“Guess that’s what we’re here for” said Jack with a nod, kneeling down to help her with it, Ianto taking the other handle; it was partly rusted shut too, but with the three of them lifting together they eventually managed to lever it open.</p><p>Cold, damp air gusted out from down below, catching Ianto by surprise; in the light of the torches he could see a narrow, steep spiral staircase, boring downwards into the dark.</p><p>They all looked at each other, the unspoken question hanging between them.</p><p>Jack answered it, inevitably, with an excited grin, and headed down onto the stairs.</p><p>With barely a second thought Ianto followed, Gwen bringing up the rear.</p><p>The stairs themselves were oddly vertiginous, and for a while traversing them by the light of the torches was a little nerve-wracking with the smooth, slightly damp flagstones and only the light of the three torch beams to illuminate their way. However, after a while it simply became repetitive and boring, so far down did the stairs go. After that the mind began to play tricks; by the time they’d passed the half-hour mark, Ianto had begun to feel a little dizzy from the constant spiraling around, and had almost let his mind convince him they’d just been traveling the same section of stairs over and over again and would perhaps never reach the bottom.</p><p>It was at this point that they reached the bottom. Or at least, level ground of sorts; a little stone slab built room, with two doors leading off to the left and the right.</p><p>The three of them exchanged looks.</p><p>“...Which way?” said Ianto, voicing what they were all thinking.</p><p>“Which one has the highest concentration of Rift traces?” said Jack.</p><p>“Hard to say” said Gwen, sweeping the scanner over the two doors, one after the other. “It’s very constant and intense in this whole area. And those weird popcorn-clumps seem to cause a lot of interference.”</p><p>“One of us could take one path, and two could take the other?” ventured Ianto.</p><p>“I think we should stay together, actually” said Gwen, with uncharacteristic nervousness.</p><p>“I agree” said Jack. “There’s no telling how much of a labyrinth it could be under here… it could go all the way through the mountain. Go deep enough there won’t be any signal on the comms, and it would be too easy to lose each other.” He frowned. “No, we stay together, explore one path at a time.”</p><p>“Okay, which first?” said Ianto.</p><p>They all looked at each other. “...Left?” said Gwen.</p><p>“Left it is” said Jack. In reality, there was nothing much to distinguish the two tunnels from here. But they had to go one way or the other, Ianto thought as he picked the lock. The ancient padlock was very rusted, and he had a difficult job getting it open even with Jack holding the light steady over his hands, but finally it clicked apart and they were through.</p><p>There were more stairs for a while, a broader spiral now. It didn’t carry on so far this time – not that Ianto had much on which to base his sense of time down here, but his watch told him it had only been ten minutes before they reached the beginning of a long, straight tunnel, sloping downwards very gently.</p><p>“We must be halfway into the mountain by now” said Gwen after a while, to break the silence. “Whoever built all this lot must’ve had a bloody good reason for it.”</p><p>“Yeah” said Jack, furrowing his brow. “I wonder what used to be down here.”</p><p>“Or still is” said Gwen.</p><p>“Ooh, spooky. Ominous” said Jack, with a wry smile. “I like it.”</p><p>“I do my best.”</p><p>As their voices fell silent again, Ianto’s torch beam met something up ahead of them, that wasn’t just the gentle incline of the tunnel. “Look” he said, squinting. “I think that’s...”</p><p>“...A door” said Jack, raising his torch too.</p><p>“I swear to God, if that thing’s locked and we have to go all the way back up those stairs with nothing to show for it...” said Gwen.</p><p>As they approached the door, Ianto’s heart sank; it did indeed seem rather unpromising, a heavy cast-iron bulkhead with a wheel in the middle, not unlike the cog door in the Hub. “Doesn’t look extremely pickable” he said. “I can’t even see where the lock would be.”</p><p>“It’s rusted all over” said Jack. “Even that alien lockpick in the Hub would struggle.”</p><p>“And we didn’t bring that… why, exactly?” said Ianto.</p><p>“Hey, you were the one packing the SUV!” protested Jack.</p><p>“Okay, I was making coffee and sandwiches at five in the morning, after <em>someone</em> kept me up ‘til two. It <em>may</em> have slipped my mind” he retorted. He rolled his eyes. “And I guess I just didn’t expect to encounter so many bloody <em>doors</em> on this trip.”</p><p>“We should at least give it a go” said Gwen, putting her hands on the wheel. “See if putting a little elbow grease into it won’t do the trick.”</p><p>They all had a go trying to turn the wheel, but sure enough, there was too much rust to move it an inch.</p><p>But in getting so close they were able to see that the door’s surface had something written on it, crudely scratched onto the peeling paint and surrounded by rust, swelling from the metal beneath. It was hard to make out, but it read:</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>FOXHOLE</b>
</p><p>
  <b>NIA</b>
</p><p>
  <b>278856749931</b>
</p><p> </p><p>“Some kind of code?” said Gwen. “...Should I try phoning that number when we get back to the surface, on the off-chance?”</p><p>“It’s not a phone number” said Ianto, scrutinising the numbers, quickly committing them to memory. “Doesn’t match any UK area codes, and anyway, it’s one digit too long.”</p><p>“Oh. Yeah.”</p><p>“Jack” said Ianto, immediately seeing Jack’s gaze fixed on the scratched inscription, though his attention seemed to be far away. “Do you know what it means?”</p><p>“...Those numbers? Yeah. I know them” said Jack, looking confused. “They’re an access code. Specifically, a Torchwood access code. ...Specifically, <em>mine</em>.”</p><p>Ianto frowned. “But the access codes don’t work like that.”</p><p>“It’s old” said Jack. “From before they changed up all the security systems, after a breach of the Hub by a rogue agent in the early nineteen-twenties.”</p><p>Ianto frowned. “...Okay. Obsolete Torchwood security details, buried underground in a weird tunnel. Interesting.”</p><p>“...Hang on, sorry” said Gwen, “Jack, did you say it was <em>your</em> code?”</p><p>“...Yeah” said Jack, looking at them. “From back when I started working for Torchwood. ...Not that I had very high security clearance then, but...”</p><p>“Why would it be here?”</p><p>Jack just shook his head and shrugged, tracing his fingertips slowly over the numbers for a moment more. “What about the rest?” he said, looking at them abruptly. “Foxhole… Nia… mean anything to either of you?”</p><p>Ianto exchanged a look with Gwen. “We were rather hoping you had an answer to that too.”</p><p>“Sorry, nothing.”</p><p>“Foxhole… could mean this tunnel?” Gwen offered, but even to Ianto she sounded doubtful. “And Nia’s a name. Welsh girl’s name.”</p><p>“Or it could be an acronym?” suggested Ianto.</p><p>“Okay… what for?” asked Jack. “Any ideas?”</p><p>“Nope.” Ianto frowned. “Some kind of code words then, maybe? A call sign? A password?”</p><p>“Why write a password on a door?” asked Jack, frowning too.</p><p>“Depends what side of the door you write it on” said Ianto.</p><p>“Depends what the password’s for” said Gwen, at the same time. “It might not be for the door.”</p><p>“There definitely doesn’t seem to be anywhere to enter a password on this door” said Jack, switching off his torch, pocketing it, and running his hands over the surface. He tried the wheel on the door again, grunting with the effort of trying to turn it. But it was rusted completely solid, and the door didn’t shift any more than it had before. It was heavy cast iron, a feat of Victorian engineering of the kind that the Hub was full of, sticking out in old chunks here and there.</p><p>Ianto leaned forward, squinting at the words; someone must have used something sharp to scratch them into the paint. “Whatever the reason, it’s been a long time since this door was used” he said. “Look at the rust; these aren’t fresh scratches.”</p><p>Jack came and peered over his shoulder. “You’re right. Looks decades old at least. Older, maybe.”</p><p>“Almost as old as the door is?”</p><p>“Could be” said Jack, frowning as he ran his hand across the rust again.</p><p>“Alright then, how do we get through it?” said Gwen, peering between their shoulders. “I reckon that thing would survive a bomb blast.”</p><p>“Only one way to find out!” said Jack cheerfully. “Ianto, surely we’ve still got some of those Elaraxian micro-blasting caps stashed away in the SUV?”</p><p>Ianto frowned. “Obviously, yes. But we’d have to go back to get them. ...And, um. Do we really want to blast it off its hinges?”</p><p>Jack grinned. “Tourist board doesn’t know about this place, so it’s not listed. Blasting it is fair game.”</p><p>“Spoken like a man who can’t die” grumbled Gwen, looking dubiously up at the ceiling. “We are not risking bringing this lot all down on our heads.”</p><p>“I would tend to agree” said Ianto, glancing up too. “Go a few generations back in my family tree and it’s all miners, and they’re all currently screaming at me through my DNA to not do, specifically, that.”</p><p>Jack pushed out his lip in a pout. “I wasn’t suggesting doing it <em>while</em> we were in this tunnel” he protested. “But we’re not gonna find out what’s on the other side by turning around and going home, are we? So–”</p><p>But his sentence was cut off, as the entire tunnel began to shake.</p><p>Ianto, alarmed, found his hand shooting out to grab Jack’s arm without conscious effort. Gwen had grasped at his other arm, and at the same moment Jack had flung his arms out to grab them both, so in the end they all ended up sort of awkwardly clinging together for balance as tremors swept the tunnel. Ianto felt a bolt of fear, as dust began to fall from the ceiling.</p><p>“What’s happening?!?” gasped Gwen.</p><p>“Jack!” Ianto shouted, mouth dry with sudden terror as he remembered how deep underground they were. “We’ve got to–!”</p><p>“–Yeah” said Jack, wide-eyed. “<em>Run.”</em> Despite his command, for a fraction of a second they were both rooted to the spot, before Jack gave them both a push up the tunnel. “Go on! Run! Go!”</p><p>They didn’t need telling twice. The three of them clinging together, they began to run pell-mell, back up the corridor as the shaking got more intense. The dust from the ceiling was worse now, making Ianto cough and blink it from his eyes as fine, hairline cracks began to form on the ceiling. He caught his breath as he felt Gwen half-stumble beside him, yanking her arm to pull her back to her feet, but the movement tugged at the grip between his own hand and Jack’s, bringing them all to a tumbling stop as the shaking intensified. It also made Gwen lose her grip on her torch, which bounced away along the ground, leaving them running into the dark. A moment later they’d all gone down in a tangle in the middle of the corridor.</p><p>Ianto found himself screaming along with Gwen as the ceiling began to crack apart, Jack throwing himself across the two of them in a futile attempt to shield them with his body. Not that he could see much; his torch had been knocked from his hand too and was rolling across the floor, beam spinning in a circle as he dropped it and it spun and skittered away, flinging light across the cracking walls in a chaotic dance.</p><p>They were going to die, he knew in that split second with absolute certainty; they were going to be crushed underground in the rubble, or at least he and Gwen would. Jack would revive, but he’d be buried with their corpses, and no one knew where he was, and so–</p><p>Just as he heard a horrible crack from above, there was a sudden, blazing flash of golden light, so bright Ianto had to squeeze his eyes closed. He was clinging on to Jack and Gwen, and the light was enveloping them, and maybe he was dying, maybe this is what it was like, <em>and then</em>–</p><p>And then, nothing. The light faded around them, making Ianto blink in stunned, nightblind confusion as the black pressed in on his seared vision. He raised his head gingerly, wincing at the pain of what he was sure would be a nasty bruise where the back of his skull had struck the hard ground. But he didn’t think anything was obviously broken.</p><p>Ianto heard heavy breathing beside him as he sat up, and a pained groan.</p><p>And then a familiar voice. “Ianto! Gwen! Are you okay?”</p><p>He felt a rush of warm relief at the sound of Jack’s voice, pinched with concern though it was. “Fine. I think.”</p><p>“Mmph” said Gwen. “Same.”</p><p>Ianto squinted into the darkness. “Are we dead?”</p><p>Jack gave a humourless chuckle. “Not if you can see this.” At the same moment the last torch beam switched on again, the one Jack must have still had in his pocket; it swept around the walls and over his face, making him instantly squeeze his eyes closed again.</p><p>Jack sighed with relief and shuffled over on his knees as they hauled themselves into sitting positions, hugging them both briefly before letting them lever themselves to their feet.</p><p>“Ugh” said Gwen reproachfully, rubbing her elbow. “What the hell just happened?”</p><p>“Don’t know” admitted Jack, torch beam sweeping over the walls, the floor, and the ceiling. They seemed to be intact, Ianto thought with confusion. He could have sworn they were covered in cracks a moment ago.</p><p>“And what was that light?” Gwen asked. “Oh Christ, was it the Rift?”</p><p>“Don’t know” said Jack again, but there was a slight edge to his voice this time as he peered down at his vortex manipulator, the display illuminating his face; Ianto thought he saw Jack’s features twitch in its pale glow.</p><p>Ianto frowned, looking down the corridor in both directions. “I doubt it, since we don’t seem to have been catapulted to the other end of the universe.” He peered down at the floor, to try and see where his or Gwen’s torches had fallen, but he couldn’t see anything. “...Wasn’t the tunnel about to collapse? Why are we alive right now?” He placed his hand on the wall, palm flat against it; the surface was completely smooth, unmarred by cracks.</p><p>Jack didn’t answer, but set off down the corridor towards the door again, taking the light with him. Ianto rolled his eyes in the darkness, but followed after him, Gwen at his side.</p><p>She was holding up her energy scanner, running it over the walls. “Getting strong Rift energy residues, but then I was before too” she said, with a sound of frustration. “There’s too much of that weird background noise on the scanner.”</p><p>“Jack” said Ianto as they walked. “Point the light at the ground? I want to see if we can find the other torches.”</p><p>Jack did as he said. But as they looked around, it soon became clear that there was nothing on the ground; not even a crack to evidence the structural damage they’d seen before, and no dropped torches either.</p><p>“Huh” said Gwen. “That’s strange. I was sure it was around here we dropped them.”</p><p>“Couldn’t have been any further on” said Ianto. “We were at the door when we started running back up the tunnel.”</p><p>“The door...” said Jack, and immediately turned away again, plunging them into darkness and walking the short remaining distance to it.</p><p>“Jack, what–” began Gwen, but she broke off as they came up in front of the door. Ianto stood in between them, staring at its surface.</p><p>Jack turned his torch back from the door’s surface, catching their faces in its beam again and making them both squint. “Anything about this seem weird to you? Or just me?”</p><p>“Not just you, no” said Ianto, staring at the door in confusion.</p><p>“But...” Gwen stepped forward, running her hand gingerly over the surface. “How’s that possible?”</p><p>Ianto frowned, mind awhirl with half-formed theories, each of which he liked less than the last. He looked to Jack, who turned the torch beam back to the door, and they all inspected it again.</p><p>The door looked almost no different, save for a few things. One, the cast iron surface of the door in front of them had no markings scratched on it any longer. As well as that, the surface was smooth and flat, and as free of rust as though someone had given it a polish and a fresh coat of paint. Silently, Jack stepped forward and turned the wheel; it moved silently, with well-oiled ease. Jack gave the door a push, so it was standing an inch or two ajar. “It wasn’t even locked” he said with a shrug.</p><p>The three of them stood shoulder to shoulder, exchanging looks. Ianto’s hand itched to go to the grip of his gun, as unease crept up his spine.</p><p>For a long, long moment, nothing happened.</p><p>It was Ianto who broke the stillness, unable to bear it any longer. He stepped forward and gave the door a tiny, experimental push. It shifted an inch further open, but that was all.</p><p>Ianto stepped back and raised his eyebrows questioningly to Jack, awaiting his order. But Jack stepped past him and Gwen instead, gun already cocked, and peered around the door.</p><p>“It’s another tunnel.”</p><p>“Oh, you don’t say” said Gwen.</p><p>“Jack” said Ianto. “This seems like it might be a trap.”</p><p>“Mm, maybe. If it is, I’m thinking I’d kinda like to know who set it.”</p><p>Gwen frowned. “Maybe someone should go and–”</p><p>But Jack was shaking his head, a small frown on his face. “Plan hasn’t changed. We stay together” he said firmly. “C’mon. Both of you get behind me.”</p><p>And with that, Jack pushed the door a little further open, enough to slip through.</p><p>Ianto’s eyes briefly met Gwen’s, and once again they followed Jack into the darkness.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As they walked through the door, Ianto saw that it had no wheel on the other side, and apparently no means of opening it at all. “Well, looks like it was meant to keep people – or things, I suppose – out rather than in” he said.</p><p>“Better leave it open if we want to get back this way then” said Jack, from up ahead.</p><p>“Well, that’s reassuring” muttered Gwen.</p><p>“Not even the slightest bit ominous” agreed Ianto, but they both followed after him.</p><p>The tunnel looked similar enough to the last as to be almost indistinguishable, except that it was slightly colder; Ianto could see their breath, puffing out into the air in the light of Jack’s torch. As they walked, he found his phone and switched on the light, which helped a little; it would drain the battery, but they had spare chargers in the SUV when they got back. He noted, idly, that there was no signal; well, that was to be expected down here, he thought.</p><p>After a little more walking, he realised that the gentle downwards slope of the tunnel had started to level out. A little further, and it was actually sloping upwards slighty, just enough that it obscured what was in front of them beyond a certain distance.</p><p>“Hey!” said Gwen after a little while. “What’s that, up ahead?”</p><p>Ianto squinted, into the circular pool of illumination from Jack’s torch beam. “Looks like the way out?”</p><p>Sure enough there was a short, straight staircase up ahead. They appeared to lead up to a trapdoor in the ceiling, wooden this time instead of metal.</p><p>“God, I hope so. I’m sick of this tunnel” said Gwen, and Ianto had to agree with her.</p><p>Still, he was wary as they stopped at the bottom of the stairs, Jack briefly peering down at some reading or other on his vortex manipulator. While he was doing that, Ianto took out the little compass he’d brought with him; with all the spiral staircases above he’d lost track of what direction they were going in, now they were travelling mostly horizontally again. But the needle seemed to spin and wander, never settling in a particular direction.</p><p>“Rift interference” said Jack, seeing what Ianto was doing. “Can sometimes cause temporary local magnetic fluctuations. Nothing harmful, don’t worry.”</p><p>“So we still don’t know exactly where we’re going to come out” said Gwen. “It could be somewhere in the mountains.”</p><p>“Well, wherever we are we can’t be too far away, as the crow flies, from where we started” said Ianto, checking his watch. “We’ve only been in these tunnels for an hour and three quarters, and most of that was walking directly downwards. So I’d say a five kilometer radius on the map, at the very most. Probably less, factoring in the lock-picking, Rift energy scanning, and explosion breaks. ...Jack…?”</p><p>“Huh? Oh. Yeah” said Jack. “What you said.”</p><p>Ianto frowned at him; Jack looked rather preoccupied, almost nervous. “I was going to ask you if you had any ideas.”</p><p>Jack looked up at the stairs, and the trapdoor above. “Let’s just go up there. I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.”</p><p>Ianto caught Gwen’s look and her shrug, as Jack started climbing the short flight of stairs.</p><p>To Ianto’s extreme relief, the trapdoor did indeed open to the outside, and for a moment he breathed in a great lungful of outside air, extremely glad to no longer be at risk of the ceiling falling in on him.</p><p>That was when he noticed it was dark.</p><p>Or at least, mostly dark. As Jack reached down a hand to pull him through, Ianto saw that they were in some kind of grassy yard by an embankment that led down to a fast-rushing river, a few trees giving the entrance to the tunnel a bit of cover. A little way off he could see the dim shapes of some buildings, mostly low stone-built row houses of the familiar sort you ound in the Welsh countryside, with a couple of wooden lean-tos. Ianto could see soft golden light spilling from some of the windows, and hear distant voices, drifting over on the chilly night breeze.</p><p>And it was night; that was the most noticeable thing. It was very dark indeed so far from the more familiar light-pollution of the city, and the sky was clear and bright with a glimmering tapestry of stars arcing overhead. Ianto was just tilting his head back and looking up at them as Jack helped Gwen up out of the trapdoor and the two of them came to stand on either side of him.</p><p>“Why’s it night?” said Gwen, looking around. “I didn’t think we’d been down there the whole day.”</p><p>“We weren’t” said Ianto, glancing down at his watch and frowning too. “Definitely no more than a couple of hours… the sun shouldn’t have set yet.”</p><p>“Some sort of time shift?” Gwen said, and Ianto winced, recalling several other temporal disturbances they’d been caught up in. None of those comparisons were particularly encouraging.</p><p>“C’mon” said Jack, and Ianto thought he looked almost reluctant; definitely worried enough to set alarm bells off in Ianto’s mind. “Let’s go look around.”</p>
<hr/><p>Gwen was feeling it again; that formless sensation that something was <em>off</em>, something was different. Something was wrong.</p><p>Not that she had a name to put to it. So instead she just followed after Jack and Ianto, towards the buildings up from the river bank.</p><p>“...Wait” said Ianto, frowning as they came up to a low wooden outhouse, surrounding two sides of a courtyard, “I know where we are. This is the village we drove through earlier. I recognise the pub roof.” He pointed to the building against which the outbuildings leaned.</p><p>“Jack, I thought you said it was uninhabited?” said Gwen.</p><p>“It was” said Jack.</p><p>“Well, it certainly doesn’t seem that way now” she said, walking around the side of the wooden lean-to; she could hear sounds coming from inside, and the smell of it reminded her of nothing so much as the time when she’d been on a school trip to a farm as a child, and seen–</p><p>“Horses” she said, frowning, watching the horses’ breath steam and gust out in the cold air. “That definitely means people, if the lights on in all the buildings weren’t a clue.”</p><p>“This is… um, <em>real</em>, isn’t it?” Ianto was standing in the middle of the paved courtyard in between the stables and the pub, looking around doubtfully. He bounced up and down on the balls of his feet, shoving his hands in his pockets. “We’re not… I dunno, dreaming, or in some sort of illusion, or...”</p><p>“It’s real” said Jack stiffly.</p><p>“Okay. Okay” said Gwen, turning away from the horses and towards a narrow passageway that led to what she assumed was the main street; she could see a few figures standing in a dim pool of light, and hear the buzz of chatter from somewhere. “I’m going to go take a look around–”</p><p>“Gwen!” she heard Jack say behind her, a little too abruptly. “Wait–”</p><p>But it was too late; she’d already reached the end of the alleyway.</p><p>And there she froze, brows furrowing at what she saw.</p><p>Parked off to one side was a coach, of the old horse-drawn kind you got in costume dramas, a bored-looking young man loitering around next to it. He was dressed strangely, Gwen thought; he was in his twenties but he looked like someone’s grandfather, a slightly tatty tweed jacket and worn trousers, wearing a flat cap. He looked up as she passed with interest, but she ignored him, walking out into the dirt road. Across the way there was another coach, with two horses harnessed to it. Beside her she could hear sound, and she saw the doorway of what was clearly a pub, light and laughter and the fragrant scents of woodsmoke and pipe smoke spilling out of the door onto the street; she saw a man and a woman come out arm in arm, laughing. They were also dressed like people in a film, the woman in a long skirt and jacket, hair pinned up under a hat.</p><p>Gwen turned the other way, looking from side to side; there wasn’t much in the village. A feew houses, a shuttered shop front. But there was a little post office, with a pretty striped red and white awning drawn back for the night, the place closed up. There was a bundle of newspapers bound with string on the doorstep in front of it, under the doorway; she bent to look, holding up her phone to throw light on it.</p><p>It was a local paper; the Aberdare Chronicle, the paper thin and cheap and the type small, uneven. But she wasn’t paying attention to that; she was only looking at the date.</p><p><em>12</em><em>th</em><em> of December, 18</em><em>99</em>.</p><p>Gwen stared, reading it and reading it again, picking the paper up from the bundle and holding it up. Aberdare stirred in her memory; for one thing they’d driven through it this morning on the way from Cardiff, on the way into the valleys proper.</p><p>For another, the newspaper was the same publication from which the cutting in the archive file came. The realisation hit her hard, like ice-cold water down her spine.</p><p>But none of that was what was burning itself into the forefront of her mind; all she could look at was the date, her eyes always drawn back to it.</p><p>“Gwen?” She flinched violently, as Ianto appeared at her elbow. He frowned, peering over her shoulder. “Gwen, what’ve you found?”</p><p>Wide-eyed, staring, she passed the newspaper to him slowly.</p><p>“What...” she Ianto, his brow furrowing. “Gwen, is this… <em>oh</em>.” She saw the exact moment he realised. “Oh, God.” He lowered the paper, looking a little sick. “I suppose we can rule out the idea that this is some kind of film set or… or reenactors, or...”</p><p>“Now those sound like Torchwood cover stories. You both know better than to believe them” said Jack, sounding very tired as he appeared on her other side. “And I’m sorry, you two. I’m so, so sorry. But it’s not a film set. No one’s supposed to know about this place in the twenty-first century. Because of…” he swallowed, avoiding both their eyes, “the Rift flares…”</p><p>Gwen exchanged a look with Ianto, narrowing her eyes at Jack again. “What are you saying...?”</p><p>Ianto stared at her, eyes very wide. “He’s saying it really is 1899” he said. “He’s saying we’ve time-traveled.” There was a slight question in Ianto’s voice, as though he was hoping against hope that Jack was going to tell him he was wrong.</p><p>But Jack just sighed, reaching out to lay a hand on each of their arms, giving them a quick, grounding squeeze. “I hoped I was wrong” he said.</p><p>“Wait a minute” said Gwen. “You <em>knew</em>?”</p><p>“I… hoped I was wrong.”</p><p>“How long?!?”</p><p>“...Since the explosion. Or rather, the Rift flare...” he held up his hand, trying to still her retort. “I wanted to get outside, to make sure… God knows this thing’s failed me before.” He held up his arm, indicating the wrist strap. He gave a soft, bitter laugh. “But it seems the spatio-temporal coordinate readings were right. It’s the twelfth of December 1899. ...Around half past five in the evening, if you’re curious.”</p><p>Gwen looked at Ianto, who was staring at Jack with wide eyes, apparently lost for words. “Jack” she said shakily, trying to stay calm. “Please tell me you know how to get back.”</p><p>He met her eye, and Gwen knew what his answer would be from the deep pain there, even before he said anything. “Oh, Gwen” he told her, gently enough to grate. “I wish I could.”</p><p>“But you’ll find a way” said Gwen, voice rising. “You’ll find a way to get us back… won’t you? We can… I dunno, open the Rift again and...”</p><p>“We can’t” said Jack flatly. “Even if we could get back to Torchwood Cardiff, and convince my former bosses to let us use the Rift manipulator...” he chuckled, hollowly. “Just look what happened last time.”</p><p>“Then… then we’ll find another way” said Gwen, beginning to pace. “There’s <em>got</em> to be something… <em>Jack!</em> There’s got to be <em>something</em>…!”</p><p>“I’ll try” said Jack. “If… if I can’t… I’ll look after you. Both of you.”</p><p>“That’s not good enough!” shouted Gwen, as Ianto slipped a trembling hand into Jack’s; some part of her knew he wouldn’t do that out in the open unless he was very scared indeed. But it was hardly her focus right now. “Jack! Are you even listening!”</p><p>He nodded, but stayed horribly, painfully silent, just staring back at her sadly. Gwen turned away from him and Ianto with a frustrated noise. And then a new thought struck her, huge and agonising.</p><p>“Rhys!” exclaimed Gwen, a pall of horror slipping over her. “Oh, God, Rhys… what happens if we’re stuck here, Jack? Rhys’ll be on his own...”</p><p>“It’ll be okay...” said Jack.</p><p>But Gwen was barely listening; she’d begun pacing back and forth again. “Oh Christ, what if I never get back?” she was saying, tears coming to her eyes. “Rhys won’t even know what happened, there’ll be no one to tell him–”</p><p>“Gwen...”</p><p>“–he’ll think I’ve just run off and left him, run off with <em>you</em>, after everything, and it’s not even been a year since we got married, and we were supposed to have a <em>life</em> together, and–”</p><p>“<em>Gwen</em>” growled Jack, but again she ignored him.</p><p>“–and if I’d died in the line of duty that would’ve been different, you know? It’d be… well, not <em>expected</em>, but… after Tosh and Owen, he’d understand. It’d break his heart, but he’d know <em>why</em> at least, he’d have some sort of–”</p><p>“<em>Gwen!</em>”</p><p>She broke off as Ianto turned to her, voice quiet but full of force. It wasn’t often that Ianto made an effort to be heard like that – normally he left that to Jack, stepping into the background when he could – but that only meant that when he did people tended to take notice. Their eyes met for a long moment, and something passed between them that Gwen couldn’t even put a name to, some understanding that was theirs and theirs alone; that thing they’d been nurturing and protecting and leaning on, the friendship and solidarity between the last two mortals in their little team, that formed the third binding tie of the odd little three-person balancing act that Torchwood had become in the wake of Tosh and Owen’s deaths.</p><p>She watched Ianto’s eyes turn from warning to a little imploring, undercut by the deep current of his own obvious fear, that he was clearly trying desperately hard not to give in to. “I trust Jack” he said. “...At least, more than I do anything else right now.”</p><p>And an instant later, Gwen let out her breath, letting the tension out of her shoulders as a little clarity came back, easing her panic slightly. “Sorry” she sighed, hand on Ianto’s forearm.</p><p>“We’ll get back” said Ianto quietly, darting a quick look at Jack as though for reassurance of his own. This, too, was how they worked together; like it or not, they’d come to rely on each other so much more these days.</p><p>“He’s right” said Jack, coming up to stand beside them, laying a hand on each of their shoulders. “I’m gonna get us all back. I promise you.” He looked between them. “Both of you.”</p><p>And in that moment, Gwen knew there was nothing else she could do but try to believe him; they’d never have a hope otherwise. She reached out and quietly took Ianto’s other hand that was hanging loose at his side, giving it a squeeze. “Well” she said briskly, drawing herself up. “First thing’s first, I suppose… we look around, see what we can find here. Go from there.”</p><p>“Go from there” echoed Jack.</p><p>“Well, luckily it’s not a very big village” said Ianto. “Just one street, so let’s start with that. How about we start by talking to those people over there?” And with that, he began to stride off back in the direction they’d come from. And in that moment, looking at the pile of newspapers and the darkness of a winter’s night, the scanned newspaper clipping was at the forefront of her mind.</p><p>Gwen winced slightly, detecting the hint of nervous energy to Ianto’s step, that she might have mistaken for simple enthusiasm for the task at hand had she not known him quite as well. Jack seemed to notice it too, spending a moment just staring after Ianto as he walked away from them.</p><p>He was just turning aside to follow, when Gwen caught his coat sleeve. “Jack” she said, her mouth dry. Suddenly she felt nervous too, as though speaking it aloud would make it real. She pushed that thought aside; Ianto’s safety was more important. “There’s something I need to tell you.”</p><p>He turned back to her and frowned, instantly on guard at her tone. “What is it?”</p><p>“Earlier, when I was looking through the files...” she fumbled in her pocket for the PDA. “I found something.”</p><p>Jack squinted at her. “...Okay...”</p><p>“See the thing is, I didn’t think it would be a problem before! But now that we’re here… I’m worried, Jack.”</p><p>He laughed bitterly. “Yeah, well, join the club Gwen.”</p><p>“No, I mean–”</p><p>“Gwen! Jack!” Before she could say anything, Ianto was jogging back up to both of them again, more animated than he’d been a moment ago. “I think you should see this.”</p><p>Jack looked between them both. Gwen sighed, gave a quiet shake of her head. “Tell you later. Ianto, what’ve you found?”</p><p>He didn’t answer, but merely led them off back down the street towards the pub, past the young man waiting by the coach, until they were standing outside the door. “What–?” began Jack, but then he blinked, following Ianto’s pointing finger up towards the door. “Oh. ...Huh.”</p><p>“<em>Huh</em>” said Gwen too, standing on Ianto’s other side.</p><p>Because above the door, a wooden pub sign swung from a cast-iron bracket in the cold winter air. The paint was old and rather cracked, but the picture of a running fox against a green landscape was clear enough, pursued by a few distant blobs of red that must surely be a hunting party in the background.</p><p>And as clear as the picture was the name inscribed beneath it in ornate letters; THE FOXHOLE INN.</p><p>Ianto looked at the two of them, raising an eyebrow. “Anyone else assume it would be harder to find than that?”</p><p>“Kinda, yeah” said Jack. “But I’m not complaining.” He smiled at them both, and began striding in through the doors. “C’mon. Let’s go see if there’s room at the inn.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Inside, the pub was rather sparse but warmly lit by a fire in the hearth, homey and welcoming with a grey tabby cat curled up asleep on the bar. As the three of them stepped across the threshold though, everyone in the place looked up and stared at them for a long moment; not that this was very many people, since the only people in the pub were a bored-looking barmaid dusting glasses, a little group of three men and one woman at a corner table, and a man in a navy-blue uniform on the far side who looked to be an off-duty policeman from the local force, nursing a bitter with his hat set on the table beside him.</p><p>Gwen tensed at the attention on herself, Jack and Ianto; people couldn’t be too used to strangers here, and with their clothes and general air of three people out of their time, she was sure they’d stick out like a sore thumb everywhere they went. Gwen tried not to recoil as the policeman’s eyes ran up and down her shamelessly; it wouldn’t do to start punching people now, she told herself.</p><p>Still, after a moment they all seemed to lose interest, turning back to what they were doing. Even the cat, which had flicked up its ears at the sudden silence, went back to snoozing peacefully. The group had already been picking up their coats to leave when they came in, and in another moment they were out the door, leaving the three of them, the somewhat drunken-looking policeman, and the barmaid – and the cat – the only ones remaining.</p><p>“...Sooo...” Gwen raised an eyebrow, looking at Jack and Ianto. “Any idea what the weird message in the tunnel wanted us to actually do here?”</p><p>“I don’t think we should make assumptions that the message in the tunnel <em>wanted</em> us to do anything” said Ianto, frowning. “In short, I don’t know. Jack?”</p><p>Jack was silent for a moment, eyes scanning over the room. “We talk to people. Normally I’d say we should buy a few drinks, but none of us have any money from this time period, so… we start a tab I guess?”</p><p>Ianto nodded. “I’ll go get them” he said, squaring his shoulders and going over to the bar.</p><p>“...Right” said Jack, blinking after Ianto’s abrupt departure.</p><p>Just as Jack was about to turn towards the table with the policeman, Gwen caught his sleeve, dropping her voice low enough that only he could hear. “Hey… Jack? You know this time, yeah? You’ve lived through it before.”</p><p>“Yeah...” he said, frowning. “It’s not even the first time I’ve been stuck here, actually.” He hastened to give her a reassuring grin. “Totally different situation though. What is it?”</p><p>“Just… will I be… <em>okay</em> here?” Gwen asked, turning her wedding band around on her finger nervously. “Only, I’m a married woman traveling alone with two men who aren’t my husband. Doesn’t seem like the height of progressive turn-of-the-century values out here either. That gonna… I dunno. Cause problems?”</p><p>Jack raised his eyebrow. “No problems you can’t handle, surely? What, you don’t have your gun on you?”</p><p>“I mean, obviously if anyone tries anything they’ll regret it” said Gwen, trying to keep her voice low. “I mean… will people… treat me differently? Will it cause <em>remarks</em>?”</p><p>Jack looked around. “Maybe” he said. “Maybe not.” He leered slightly. “You could pretend to be married to me if you want? Or Ianto? That might be fun.”</p><p>Gwen gave him a little shove in the arm, and a grudging laugh. “Don’t even go there, Jack. That’s the last thing we need.”</p><p>“Fair enough” he said, with a chuckle. “It should be okay” he said, looking a little more sympathetic. “Keep your head on a swivel though, and be prepared for… people not to be kind. But also, maybe some people <em>will</em> be kind. Stick with those ones.”</p><p>Not for the first time, Gwen wondered about Jack’s history in this time period. “I can do that” she said, nudging him gently as they sat down at a table around the opposite corner of the bar. “And you and Ianto...”</p><p>“...Will behave ourselves, and keep a low profile” Jack reassured her, with a regretful looking grin. “For now.”</p><p>She nodded. “I’ll keep a look out for Ianto too.”</p><p>“Me too” Jack said, as they both watched Ianto saying something in Welsh to the barmaid as she pulled a pint of dark amber ale in a glazed ceramic mug. “Honestly, I think Ianto is going to be better at blending in that either of us.” Jack sounded a little sad when he said it, Gwen thought.</p><p>A moment later they fell silent as Ianto picked his way back over, expertly carrying their full drinks – mugs of ale for him and Gwen, and water for Jack, as usual.</p><p>“So?” said Jack, shuffling sideways to allow Ianto space. They all leaned together a little conspiratorially, talking in whispers so the policeman and the barmaid couldn’t hear. “What’d you find out?”</p><p>“The barmaid’s name is Mari Jones. No relation. ...As far as I know?” he narrowed his eyes for a moment. “She owns this place, runs it with her two children since their father died. She says this place used to be somewhere Carrington’s guests came through when they went hunting out in the valley, but they’ve seen hardly any outsiders for years.” He quirked a smile. “Also, not a ringing endorsement of his character from the locals: she thinks he’s crazy, and said something about all his contraptions and inventions up in that big castle. Um… something else I didn’t understand, my Welsh is a bit rusty and so’s her English. But that was the gist.”</p><p>“Good work though” said Jack, nodding approvingly. “Anything else you could get?”</p><p>“She seemed very curious about us too” said Ianto, taking a sip of his pint and peering into it, before taking another. It was quite good, Gwen thought as she sipped her own. “There was more that I didn’t understand, but she seemed very keen for you to go somewhere, Jack. And worried about there not being enough room? Oh, and I thought it seemed like she knew you, Jack...?”</p><p>Jack frowned, squinting across the room discretely. “Never met her before in my life.”</p><p>“...Okay. Well, after that she asked about me and Gwen, and I… um.”</p><p>“What?” said Gwen, squinting. Ianto looked rather apologetic.</p><p>“I ah… I think I accidentally implied… that you and Jack were married?” Ianto winced. “Sorry.”</p><p>“You said we were <em>married</em>?” hissed Gwen.</p><p>“I panicked!”</p><p>“You said <em>I</em> was married to <em>Jack</em>.”</p><p>“I was improvising!”</p><p>“Christ, the two of you really have been rubbing off on each other. No, shut up Jack, this isn’t funny. I just mean you have the same taste in stupid ideas. …You couldn’t have just said I was your sister or something?”</p><p>“...Admittedly, that would have been a better idea” said Ianto, making a face. “If it’s any consolation, I’m regretting it more and more by the second. What happened was, she asked if we wanted another bedroom because she didn’t realise there’d be three of us, and I said no, we wouldn’t need any bedrooms, because we wouldn’t be staying and I think there’s been some sort of mistake. But I don’t think she understood that part, or at least she seemed confused by it. She was convinced we’d already been here, or at least Jack had? Anyway, I said we wouldn’t need an extra room, thus, I’m afraid the final conclusion was we wouldn’t need another bedroom because… you two are married, I suppose. My cultural context and grasp of Victorian social mores was rather failing by that point. ...God knows who she assumed I was in all this.”</p><p>“<em>He’s so good at blending in</em>, you said” griped Gwen, but she knew it was probably for the best. She reached under the table and gave Ianto’s hand a squeeze, letting him know she wasn’t actually angry at him. “Ah, well. If I have to pretend to be married to Jack to get back to my real husband, that’s probably a fair deal. As long as you don’t actually mind, Ianto...?”</p><p>“I bless your marriage” he deadpanned.</p><p>She caught Jack’s nascent smirk, pointing at him sternly. “Oi, you wipe that smile off your face. Mister Cooper.”</p><p>Ianto stifled a snort, looking slightly more at ease too. “Listen to your wife.”</p><p>Jack raised a challenging eyebrow at him. “Ooh. Feel free to take that tone with me whenever you want.”</p><p>Gwen rolled her eyes, talking over Ianto’s reply. “Plenty of time for you two to have a torrid affair later. We’ve got work to do. We need to sort out our cover story now, <em>properly</em>, if we’re going to do this. Why are we here?"</p><p>“Well” said Jack, “I guess we can say Gwen and I are… hmm. Married aristocrats on tour of the country. Gives us plausible deniability if we slip up.”</p><p>“And I guess me being Gwen’s brother who came along for the trip does make sense” said Ianto.</p><p>“Excellent. What’s our backstory, baby brother?” said Gwen, patting Ianto on the arm.</p><p>He looked a little put out. “We grew up in Cardiff… parents rich but absent… got palmed off on a series of governesses and tutors. We don’t need to make up too much detail that way, since most people fitting that description probably wouldn’t care about the servants.”</p><p>“Bored posh kids, until one day this handsome American military officer came along to sweep you both off your feet?” said Jack, grinning. “But oh no! Which sibling will he fall for?”</p><p>“Jack, this cover story is veering into dodgy romance novel territory now” said Gwen. “Dial it back.”</p><p>“I agree” said Ianto with a grimace. “We’re not writing a bodice-ripper here.”</p><p>“Oh, say that again” said Jack, eyes glazing over as he stared at Ianto.</p><p>“Absolutely not” said Ianto. “What about the clothes?”</p><p>“No bodices yet, unfortunately...”</p><p>“Our <em>clothes</em>, Jack! How do we explain them?”</p><p>“Hmm… mountaineering” declared Jack. “Victorians with too much money got up to all sorts of weird stuff. They got absolutely <em>everywhere</em>.”</p><p>“Okay, that sounds like it might work” said Ianto. “I mean, it’s crazy, and I don’t like it. But...”</p><p>“But it’ll do for the moment.” Gwen took another, fortifying sip of her pint. “Now, you two try and talk to the policeman. I’m going to talk to Mari this time. Screw intricate interpersonal dynamics, I’ve got something else I want to ask about.”</p><p>“Yes, Ma’am” said Jack, meeting Ianto’s gaze and rolling his eyes with a slight grin.</p><hr/><p>As soon as Gwen had gone to the bar, Ianto fixed his gaze on Jack. “What is it you’re not telling us?” he asked, trying to keep his tone neutral and free of accusation. “What’s going on, Jack?”</p><p>Jack just shook his head. “I don’t know.”</p><p>“That barmaid <em>really</em> sounded like she knew you. I thought you’d never been here?”</p><p>“I haven’t!” insisted Jack.</p><p>Ianto squinted at him; he’d got better at telling when Jack was lying, or omitting, not that Jack did it quite so much anymore. In this instance though, he had the impression that Jack’s confusion was genuine. “Okay” he said, thinking. “Okay, okay. Well, that’s another thing to worry about, I suppose...”</p><p>He tailed off, as Jack made a shushing gesture; when he turned his head he saw it was because the policeman was approaching their table.</p><p>“Evening, Captain” said the man, and for a moment Ianto frowned, noting something for later. He squinted at the man, taking in Jack’s smile and rearraging his own face into something less overtly mistrustful.</p><p>“Evening” said Jack, making room for the man at their table. The man eyed Ianto curiously, and Ianto had to force himself to give a self-assured smile back. He was used dissembling, to pretending to be people he wasn’t, but here, in this time, he felt more out of his depth than ever before.</p><p>“Sorry” Jack was saying, voice filled with faux-casual lightness. “I don’t remember if we’ve met. Mister, uh…?”</p><p>“<em>Constabl</em><em>e</em> Roberts” said the man, rather tightly.</p><p>“Off duty?” said Jack, smiling pleasantly. Ianto kept one eye on this conversation, and at the same time watched Gwen follow Mari behind the bar and into the kitchen.</p><p>“That I am. Staying in the inn for the night too.” He gave Jack a quick, messy salute; he was slurring his words slightly, but it sounded odd, like he was playing it up. “On which note… got to go find my room. Let me know if there’s trouble though, aye?”</p><p>“Sure thing” said Jack, with a grin and a salute.</p><p>And then he was gone, heading for the stairs.</p><p>They both sat for a moment in the now-empty room; even the cat had woken up, and jumped down from the bar and ran into the kitchen as they watched.</p><p>Ianto’s eyes met Jack’s, narrowing as he stared up the stairs, where the constable was now out of sight. “Was it me or was there something suspicious about him?”</p><p>“<em>Oh</em> yeah” said Jack. “He was <em>definitely</em> not as drunk as he was trying to pretend to be.”</p><p>“I was thinking more of the fact that he already knew you were a captain…”</p><p>Jack raised an eyebrow. “And…?”</p><p>“My first assumption was he knew from the RAF insignia on your coat, but those stripes and indeed the RAF itself won’t even exist for another two decades. Now, I can think of two possible reasons why he might know. First… he might also be a time-traveler. I would say what are the chances, but… well, actually I have no idea. Second, and I suspect more likely… that he’s met you somewhere before. <em>This</em> time’s you, I mean.” Ianto saw Jack’s look, nodding to still the protest on his lips. “I know, I know” he said. “You don’t recognise him, and you haven’t been here before. I <em>believe</em> you, Jack. But I hope you’ll agree, something’s wrong with all this. Yes?”</p><p>Jack blinked at him. “...Ianto Jones, you’re <em>good</em> at this. ...You would have made an excellent time agent” he said, staring for a moment as though struck by this.</p><p>“Given my experience with time agents, I have no idea if I should take that as a compliment or not.”</p><p>“Up to you” said Jack, giving him a pat on the arm. “But you’re completely right.” He frowned. “Something doesn’t fit. What we need is more information.”</p><p>“And we should warn Gwen that something’s up.”</p><p>“Just what I was thinking” said Jack, giving his knee a comforting squeeze under the table and getting to his feet.</p><hr/><p>Up close, Gwen thought the woman behind the bar looked a little forbidding; she was in her late forties, thick-set and short with a mass of dark brown hair streaked with grey, pinned up onto her head. Her eyes were rimmed by smudgy dark kohl, making them look lighter than they were, and rather piercing. She gave Gwen a mildly suspicious look, standing with her hand on her hip and taking in Gwen’s clothes and her general appearance; she winced, internally. They were really going to have to start blending in more.</p><p>Nevertheless, she was here for a reason. She finished the last of the pint and set it on the bar. But before she could say anything, Mari addressed her in Welsh too fast for Gwen to follow. She knew a little of the language, but not as much or as fluently as Ianto did. Briefly, she contemplated turning tail to go get him again, but he and Jack were whispering together in the corner, the policeman approaching their table.</p><p>And before Gwen could move away, the woman raised an eyebrow at her and addressed her in very heavily-accented English. “I <em>said</em>, it’s no use just standing there... what’ll it be, darling?”</p><p>“Oh” Gwen flushed. “Um, actually I’m not here for a drink. I wanted to ask if NIA means anything to you? Um, N-I-A.”</p><p>“Nia?” The woman frowned. “<em>My</em> Nia? What d’you want her for?”</p><p>If Gwen was honest, she hadn’t expected to get a positive response at all, let alone so quickly. “<em>Your</em>…?”</p><p>“My daughter” she clarified. “Works in the kitchen.” She frowned, shoulders squaring a little defensively. “She’s not done nothing wrong, mind. She’s a good girl, is my Nia.”</p><p>“Oh, no, it’s nothing like that!” reassured Gwen. “I just wanted to talk to her for a minute.” She gestured. “Would you call her for me, please?”</p><p>Mari gave her another rather suspicious once-over, then shrugged, put down her cloth and motioned for Gwen to follow her behind the bar into the narrow, windowless passageway that clearly led to the kitchen. Gwen stood and waited at the kitchen doors as Mari disappeared beyond. She was just wondering if she should follow her in, or if she should go back and see what Jack and Ianto were doing, when another woman came out of the kitchen. Her features strongly resembled Mari’s, except she was twenty at the most; clearly the daughter, then. She was as short as her mother, with quick, intelligent eyes and mousy brown hair pinned up in a long braid looped around her head, and a white cap on top. She was dressed in a plain linen dress with a neat apron over it, which she was currently wiping off her floury hands on. She gave Gwen a smile, polite but a little nervous, like she was afraid she was going to get a telling off. “I’m Nia” she said with a quick curtsy, in English. “Nia Jones. Mam says you was asking for me?”</p><p>“Erm, yes” said Gwen, thinking of reaching out to shake her hand and then stopping herself after a moment of doubt, and awkwardly curtsying back despite her lack of a skirt. “I’m Gwen Cooper” she said.</p><p>“Pleased to meet you” said Nia, looking a touch bemused. “What can I do for you, Ma’am?”</p><p>Gwen blinked. In truth, now she was here she had no idea what she was supposed to get from this Nia, or even whether this was the right person at all. “I was wondering what you could tell me about Carrington Castle?”</p><p>“Oh… is this about Ifan?” she frowned, looking a little worried. “Nothing’s happened to him, has it?”</p><p>“Um… no? Wait, who?”</p><p>“Oh, erm, my big brother Ifan. Works up at the big house as a groom, and a driver sometimes. He’s working there tonight; he’s taking one of Sir Frederick’s dinner guests up in the coach later, only he’s late.”</p><p>Gwen blinked. “...Oh” she said, feeling a combination of dread and profound, guilty relief settle over her. “That’s good to know. Um, I’ve got a few questions for you Nia, if that’s alright.”</p><p>“Of course, Ma’am.”</p><p>Her deference made Gwen a little nervous, but she tried to hide it as best she could. “Ah, okay, first of all… your family name is Jones?”</p><p>“Yes, that’s right Ma’am.”</p><p>“Common name around here...” she said, frowning. “And your brother Ifan… that’s his name, yes? How old is he?”</p><p>“Twenty-five last month, Ma’am.” Nia was frowning, looking as though she wanted to ask a question herself but not quite daring to. “...Ah, he’s not in trouble, is he?”</p><p>“No!” she said, a little too hastily. She smiled, as wide and reassuring as she could “No, no, he’s just fine. Just… routine checks.”</p><p>Nia’s brow furrowed. “Good” she said. “Only...”</p><p>“What?” said Gwen.</p><p>“Nothing” said Nia. “Only, you do hear such funny things about what goes on up at the big house.”</p><p>“What sort of funny things?”</p><p>Nia looked suddenly guarded. “I shouldn’t like to say.”</p><p>“No, please do” said Gwen. “I’m love to know.”</p><p>“Oh… um. I mean, Nettie said… Nettie’s my friend, Annette Allinson who’s a maid up at the castle… she’s supposed to be marrying Ifan, but...” Nia looked far away for a moment, and a little upset Gwen thought, before the girl visibly gathered herself, standing up a bit straighter. “Um, anyway, never mind that... Nettie’s mam came with Sir Frederick and Mistress Charlotte from London, used to mind their children before the fever took her too, so Nettie grew up in the scullery and the kitchens there… anyway, Nettie said…”</p><p>“What?” said Gwen gently. “What did she say?”</p><p>Nia took a big breath, looking as though she regretted getting into this, “...she did say for ages now there’s been <em>words</em> going around the kitchens, about… about back when Mistress Charlotte and the children died.”</p><p>“Oh” said Gwen, thinking back. “They got sick, didn’t they. Seven years ago...”</p><p>“That’s what Mister Watkins told them all to say” said Nia, dropping her voice even lower. “He’s Sir Frederick’s valet you know, handles all his personal business… he put it about that Mistress Charlotte died when the fever came, at the same time some of the staff did. But Nettie’s heard no-one else actually saw the bodies, back then.”</p><p>Gwen frowned. “What are you saying, Nia? That… the story isn’t true? Did something else happen to Charlotte Carrington and her children?”</p><p>“I dunno” said Nia, looking away from Gwen and quailing under her gaze, clearly reluctant to tell her any more. “I don’t want Nettie getting in no trouble!”</p><p>“Of course not.” Gwen was just about to ask more, when Nia’s face cleared, catching sight of something over Gwen’s shoulder with a look of obvious relief to have an out from this conversation. “Aw, Ianto!” she said, with a mild reprimand in her voice. Gwen frowned, confused, only to see Nia drop down to her knees and scoop up the cat that had been asleep on the bar earlier, whispering to it in Welsh and kissing its head between the ears. “Sorry Ma’am” she said to Gwen. “Ianto knows he’s not supposed to go in the kitchen, but he always makes a run for it.”</p><p>“Your cat’s name is <em>Ianto</em>?” she said, suppressing a giggle.</p><p>“Yes Ma’am” she smiled ruefully, setting the cat down on the floor to twine around her legs. Gwen bent down and gave his ears a scratch. “The name was meant to be a joke” said Nia, smiling softly. “Ianto was what Ifan was called when he was little, see, but then when he grew up he wanted to use his real name. So Mam said, well we’ll call the cat Ianto instead so I can still remember my baby boy.” Nia grinned. “Ifan allowed her that much.”</p><p>Ianto, Gwen remembered, was the diminuitive form of Ifan. Gwen’s heart ached at this, as the cat started to purr under her scritches. She’d been all ready to tease her own Ianto about this, but suddenly she didn’t have the heart to. “Ianto’s my… brother’s name, too” she said, straightening up with a gentle smile. “Odd coincidence.”</p><p>“Aw, then maybe we were meant to be friends. Nettie says things like that, sometimes” Nia smiled, shooing the cat back into the bar. “Go on, go off with you. Go put the fear of God into some mice!” Gwen followed her, just in time to see Nia release him back into the central space.</p><p>As the cat jumped down from her arms, Gwen saw Jack and Ianto approaching. Just as she was raising a hand to wave, she saw Nia turn her head to look at them.</p><p>And then, Nia brightened. “Oh, Captain Harkness!” she said. Gwen frowned, looking over at the two of them and then at Nia. Ianto was frowning too, and Jack looked surprised at the sound of his name for the briefest moment, caught like a rabbit in headlights. But Nia appeared not to notice, walking over to them with a big smile. “Thank goodness you’re back!”</p><hr/><p>As the door to the main common room swung closed behind him, Constable Roberts stood up a little straighter as he climbed the stairs, with less sway to his step. By the time he was well outside the range of sight and hearing of the door, he was taking them two at a time, making it to the landing and hurrying down the short corridor; the inn had three rooms, and he stopped in front of the one at the far end, pulling his key out of his pocket.</p><p>Inside, he made sure the door was closed and bolted behind him, then turned to the window, peering briefly through the gap in the piece of canvas he’s pinned up over the window.</p><p>Satisfied, he turned to the side and opened up an inlaid wooden box. Inside was an ornate brass telegraph machine, connected up to a jumble of other equipment hidden under a dust sheet on the table.</p><p>Pausing to think for a moment, he began to tap out a message.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nia turned hastily back to Gwen. “Apologies, Ma’am, I said I’d point Captain Harkness towards his evening’s appointment when he came back.”</p><p>“Um… okay?” said Gwen, utterly nonplussed as she peered at Jack; by the look of it he was just as lost as she was. “What evening’s appointment?”</p><p>“Ah… respectfully, I don’t know if I should… it’s a private matter, and–”</p><p>“Don’t worry” came Jack’s voice as he recovered, smiling brilliantly again as he walked up beside Gwen and put his arm around her. “She’s with me.”</p><p>“Oh… <em>oh!</em>” said Nia, her eyes traveling over Gwen again, taking in Jack’s hand around her waist and Gwen’s wedding band, and flushing a little, dropping an embarrassed curtsy. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise...”</p><p>“This is… my husband” said Gwen, steeling herself. She gestured to Ianto, who had also come over to join them. “And my little brother.”</p><p>“Ianto Jones” he said, inclining his head and starting to hold his hand out for a handshake, before hastily drawing it back as Nia curtsied again, looking rather perplexed. Gwen winced as she realised she’d introduced herself as Gwen Cooper earlier, so they were all going by different surnames. But if Nia had noticed, then she wasn’t saying anything about it, so maybe she just took them for modern, eccentric city folk. Hopefully.</p><p>“...Oh, that’s my cat’s name!” said Nia at last.</p><p>“Of course it is” said Ianto, with a sigh.</p><p>“I mean, uh, sorry, it’s not my place...”</p><p>“Now, now” said Gwen sternly. “None of that, eh? Did we not say we were friends?”</p><p>“I… I mean, y-yes, but I didn’t know…” Nia blushed, looking between the three of them – still with some confusion – as the cat ran over, jumping up onto the table again. “Ah, pleased to meet you, Sir, Ma’am, and Captain Harkness I’m glad to see you back. I didn’t realise you were all… um, sorry, I’m forgetting myself. Only, Captain Harkness, you never said you’d brought your wife and brother-in-law with you when you arrived earlier! I wish I could offer another room more fit for a lady and the extra gentleman, but you already booked those two see... and the third’s already taken by the constable.”</p><p>“We’ll be just fine” said Jack, flashing his most reassuring smile and starting to scritch the cat between the ears, making him purr sleepily.</p><p>“Um, if you’ll be wanting to dress for your dinner appointment with Sir Frederick...” she eyed them up and down dubiously, clearly confused by their clothes.</p><p>“Ah! Yes” said Gwen gratefully. “Sorry, uh… my husband and I, and my brother... we’re dressed like this because we’ve been… ah… up in the hills” she said.</p><p>“Mountaineering” supplied Jack, with a nod. “All the rage in Cardiff and London. I’m surprised you don’t get them coming in droves, with these peaks.”</p><p>“Oh, I don’t know if Sir Frederick would allow that” said Nia. “There used to be a lot more people who’d come through, hunting with Sir Frederick and Mistress Charlotte you know and stopping at the pub on the way home to the castle; we’d get all sorts, the kinds of guests they had. But ever since she died he’s had precious few outsiders coming through the village.” She brightened. “That’s why we’re so pleased to have you here, Captain Harkness. Though I do wish you’d have let us know your wife would be staying too; we’d have outfitted your rooms accordingly.”</p><p>“No matter” said Jack with a guileless look. “The three of us are used to all kinds of bed-sharing.”</p><p>“...Goodness” said Nia, clearly unsure what to make of this.</p><p>“Mountaineering” said Ianto, rather hastily.</p><p>“Ah” she said, nodding.</p><p>“Yes, ignore my <em>husband</em>” said Gwen, smiling sweetly and resisting the urge to stomp on Jack’s foot. “No, really, please do. Um, this might be a weird request but… do you have some clothes we could borrow?”</p><p>“Oh! Ah, I can see what I can find...” said Nia. “Though… forgive me, is there nothing that suits you in that big clothes chest you had brought up to your rooms when you checked in this afternoon, Captain?”</p><p>Gwen and Jack stared at each other. “Oh, of course” said Gwen. “My husband just, ah… forgot. Men, eh?”</p><p>Jack gave Gwen a look, before turning to smile at Nia apologetically. “Maybe I did, but it seems my wife’s misplaced our key… would you have a spare we can borrow for the night? It must have fallen out of her pocket… careless…”</p><p>Beside him, Gwen saw Ianto roll his eyes and bend down to start petting the cat which had jumped up onto the table. Nia looked like she was trying not to giggle, looking between Jack and Gwen. “Um, yes of course” she said. “Excuse me a minute, I’ll just go and get it.”</p><p>“I’ll come too” said Gwen, “I’d like to talk to your mother again, if that’s okay.”</p><p>Nia nodded, and trotted off to the bar with Gwen following behind her, leaving Jack and Ianto alone.</p>
<hr/><p>As soon as they’d gone, Ianto turned to Jack again. “So?”</p><p>Jack froze. “So, what?”</p><p>“<em>So</em>, apparently you rented two rooms at this inn earlier today. Oh, and you’ve got a dinner date at the castle that you don’t have any memory of.”</p><p>Jack gave him the faintest ghost of his usual smirk. “Jealous?”</p><p>“More confused, honestly. I could come up with theories about how any of that’s possible, but…?” he raised his eyebrow at Jack.</p><p>“Your guess is as good as mine” said Jack, frowning.</p><p>“...Okay. Okay. Jack, is it possible...” said Ianto quietly, “is it possible your bosses at Torchwood retconned you? It was organisational policy for some specific missions at Torchwood One, to retcon agents after–” he broke off, watching Jack raise his hand to rub his temple, looking shaken. Ianto wanted nothing more than to reach out and pull him into his arms, but he didn’t dare; not here. His fingers stilled in Ianto the cat’s fur. “Look, Jack, all I’m saying is, clearly you’re involved in this somehow. You checked into a room in this inn earlier today, and the only thing I can think is that when you get back to Cardiff, after… presumably whatever happens tonight at dinner with Carrington, whoever’s in charge is going to retcon you. Which means something happens tonight that Torchwood didn’t want you to remember. Unless you can think of another explanation?”</p><p>Jack looked up at him at last, face filled with pain. “The other possibility is that this timeline is being rewritten.”</p><p>“...Is that better or worse?”</p><p>“Oh, much worse” said Jack, with a bitter chuckle. “Are you kidding? Anything could happen.”</p><p>“Jack...” Ianto risked laying a discrete hand on Jack’s arm, darting a glance over his shoulder to where Gwen was talking to Nia and Mari again.</p><p>Jack looked up at him. “Let’s stick with the Retcon theory for now. I’ve lost time before...” his eyes went distant for a moment, and Ianto’s heart ached. “The Time Agency took things from me… two whole years.” Jack smiled grimly at Ianto’s expression. “Yeah, exactly. That’s why I left. I just hadn’t realised Torchwood was doing it to me too… I mean yeah, we retconned people who saw too much… we still do. It’s for the best. But I didn’t think Alice and Emily...” he tailed off, staring blankly for a moment.</p><p>Ianto thought about Yvonne and Torchwood One, and sighed. “You thought they’d let you keep your memories.”</p><p>“Yeah” said Jack, still looking lost in thought. But a moment later, he pulled himself together, frowning and standing up straight, soldier-like. “Still” he said. “It doesn’t make a difference. What matters is, there’s another version of me walking around somewhere nearby tonight.” He darted glances from side to side, as though afraid he’d see himself coming in the door that very moment. “I can’t cross my own timeline, Ianto.”</p><p>“What happens if you cross your own timeline?”</p><p>“I’m a fixed point in space and time that exists throughout history; it’s like pushing a pin through the fabric of space-time. One me is okay, but two, at the very same point...”</p><p>“What, what happens?”</p><p>“...Bad stuff.”</p><p>“...I see” said Ianto, when Jack didn’t elaborate. “Well, I suppose we should be trying not to mess with space-time anyway. So, uh, back to the original theory...” he frowned. “Say it’s Retcon. Presumably that means Torchwood was trying to hide something from you. Maybe you saw something they didn’t want you to.”</p><p>“Will see. Tonight.”</p><p>“Yeah. Don’t suppose you have any guesses what that might be?”</p><p>“Now if I had, they wouldn’t have done a very good job of wiping my memory, would they?”</p><p>“Fair point.”</p><p>They were both silent for a moment, thinking.</p><p>At that time Gwen had appeared again beside them. Now that they were away from Nia, she looked as alarmed as Ianto felt, voice rising urgently. “Jack, Ianto, can we have a word outside?”</p><p>“Outside?” said Jack. “Gwen...”</p><p>“<em>Please</em>” she said, already beginning to tug Ianto by his sleeve towards the pub door, shooting glances over her shoulder at the bar all the while. “I’ll explain, just...”</p><p>“Okay, okay” said Jack, exchanging a puzzled look with Ianto as they let Gwen shepherd them back out into the cold night air.</p>
<hr/><p>Gwen glanced surreptitiously around, pulling them away from the door of the pub, spilling golden lamplight onto the street.</p><p>“Gwen! Gwen, what–” began Jack, but she shushed him, shaking her head at Ianto before he could ask.</p><p>She pulled Jack and Ianto aside, out of the light and around the corner of the pub – casting a nervous look at the coach stationed on the other side, but it was dark and still – into the little alleyway that led to the stables. Once she’d checked they were really alone she lowered her voice. “Nia’s brother’s going to die tonight.”</p><p>“Wait, what?”<br/>
<br/>
“Ifan, her brother! He’s going to die!”</p><p>Jack blinked. “Gwen, no offense but I don’t think that’s high on our list of priorities–”</p><p>“But it is!” insisted Gwen. “Jack, I think… I think it’s all related, but even if it wasn’t… <em>that boy’s going to die</em>. We have to save him!”</p><p>Ianto frowned. “What? Gwen, explain from the beginning.”</p><p>In answer, Gwen took a deep breath and pulled out her PDA – the battery was running down, she should be saving it, she knew, because she wouldn’t be able to charge the battery here. But this was important. She paged through the scanned records, finding what she was looking for and steeling herself for a moment before pulling it up on the screen. It had to be done; they had to see. “Here” she said, magnifying the newspaper clipping so they could read. “Nia’s brother is named Ifan Jones. He’s the right age and he’s a groom at the castle, working tonight. It’s him, he’s going to drown.”</p><p>She watched as their eyes skimmed the article, sharing a glance between them.</p><p>“You’ve known about this the whole time?” said Jack at last. “Why didn’t you say anything?”</p><p>Gwen hesitated, trying not to let her eyes linger on Ianto; his face was unreadable in the dim light of the alleyway. “Well, before we came here it didn’t seem relevant. It was just a bit of a creepy coincidence, because... you know...” she said. “And before I met Nia, I didn’t make the connection. …Also...” she made a face, as the silence hung between them, eyed sliding sideways to Ianto. “Little bit close to home, isn’t it?”</p><p>Jack’s hand had gone to the small of Ianto’s back, possessive. Or perhaps protective. “So, let me get this straight... you were scared Ianto was in danger, so you... decided not to say anything?”</p><p>“Well I don’t know how this works!” said Gwen. “I thought, too late for me, but if you two know about it it might ruin our chances of stopping it! Time travel, causality, not creating a paradox… all that stuff!”</p><p>Jack raised his eyebrow at her.</p><p>“Well, I don’t know, do I? It’s not like you’ve ever explained it!” she protested.</p><p>“She’s got a point, Jack” said Ianto. “I’d feel better knowing more about what we can and can’t change. Things we shouldn’t do.”</p><p>Jack sighed. “Don’t cross your own timeline, don’t do anything that could have results that are inconsistent with the future you know. Otherwise, it might not be there to go back to.”</p><p>Gwen and Ianto exchanged a nervous look.</p><p>“Okay, that’s all well and good” said Gwen. “But what about Ifan?”</p><p>“Ifan...”</p><p>“The boy! The one who dies!” she indicated the PDA.</p><p>“What <em>about</em> him?”</p><p>“Boy? He’s <em>my</em> age!” said Ianto at the same moment, sounding vaguely offended.</p><p>But Gwen wasn’t paying him any attention, waving the PDA accusingly and squaring up to Jack. “Well? How are we going to help him? Tell me what we can do, mister Time Agent.”</p><p>Jack just stared at her in silence for a long moment, brow furrowing. Then, without warning, he was moving. “Right. I’ll take that” said Jack, snatching the PDA from Gwen’s hands before she could react. “That’s quite enough foreknowledge to be going on with.”</p><p>“Oi! Give that back!”</p><p>“Nuh-uh. The Time Agency trained us for this… I know what I’m doing, navigating the past.”</p><p>“Do you though?” she shot back. “Could’ve fooled me. You didn’t even know some other version of you was going to be here tonight! And while we’re on the subject, care to explain that?”</p><p>Jack shook his head. “I don’t know, Gwen. I don’t understand that, and until I know more I’m not taking any chances.”</p><p>“See that’s my point, though! Who says any of this works the way you think?”</p><p>Jack hid his wince with a warning smile, but didn’t back down. “Leave it alone, Gwen.”</p><p>“So… what? We’re just going to knowingly let that poor lad die?” snapped Gwen, refusing to back down either. “We have knowledge that might be able to save him!”</p><p>Jack’s frown did not abate. “Yeah, knowledge of the future! <em>This</em>...” he pointed at the article, “has already happened, Gwen. No changing it. No interfering now we’re part of events.”</p><p>“But don’t we have a duty? We <em>can’t</em> let him die. I won’t do it, Jack. I won’t!”</p><p>Jack’s teeth were gritted. “And if it’s him or Ianto? What then, hmm?”</p><p>She opened her mouth, cutting reply dying on her tongue. “It doesn’t have to be!”</p><p>“Well, unless there’s another twenty-five year old I. Jones in this village–”</p><p>“Not impossible” said Ianto lightly, but Gwen could hear how hard he was working to keep his tone casual. “Common name...”</p><p>“–Barring that possibility” said Jack, stony-faced, “tell me, Gwen Cooper, if it’s him or Ianto, who’d you choose to save, huh?”</p><p>Gwen clutched at Ianto’s jacket sleeve with a sigh; put like that the answer was clear, but she still didn’t like it. “Obviously Ianto” she said, her heart squeezing in dread at the thought of losing her friend.</p><p>Jack nodded. “Well then.”</p><p>Gwen gritted her teeth. “I bloody <em>hate</em> time travel!” she exclaimed, hot tears starting in her eyes.</p><p>“I have to agree with you on that” said Ianto, still sounding rather tense.</p><p>Jack only sighed, reaching out and gathering both of them to him in a hug in the shadow of the wall of the pub. “I know. I’m sorry. But I’m gonna get you both home safe, just like I promised.”</p><p>It was Ianto who broke the embrace, his face and his whole stance one of suppressed tension. “Jack. Surprisingly enough, I’m actually not that comfortable with letting a stranger die for me.”</p><p>Jack’s face hardened and he turned around to face Ianto, grabbing him by the upper arms. “Ianto, listen to me. You don’t understand, it’s not like that. You can’t think of it as anyone dying <em>for</em> you. It’s already happened, we just know about it. And that’s the way it’s gonna stay.”</p><p>“But it <em>hasn’t</em> already happened” said Ianto. “I thought that was the point.”</p><p>“So, what? You wanna die here? Is that what you want?”</p><p>“No! Obviously not, but...” Ianto was staring not at Jack but almost through him, as though at something in the far distance. When he spoke his voice sounded far away. “Why… why should my life be more important than his? Than anyone’s?”</p><p>Gwen just managed to see the sudden flash of anger across Jack’s face, or perhaps it was simple, weary anguish. “<em>Because I</em>–” he snapped, then broke off, breathing hard, running his thumbs over Ianto’s upper arms where he held him as he scrutinised his face. As though reminding himself that Ianto was still real, still alive and there with him.</p><p>It seemed to snap Ianto’s attention back to the moment again, staring back at him. Gwen almost felt she was intruding, as the two of them looked into each other’s eyes for a long moment. But then Jack drew back, pinching the bridge of his nose. “...I am <em>not</em> having this conversation right now. I told you, I’m gonna get you home. Both of you.” He paused. “...Until then, I’m making a call right now. Ianto, you’re staying out of events in this time, just to be on the safe side. Stay in the pub if you can, or around the village. We’ll get back to you when we find out more.”</p><p>“Wait, what?” said Ianto. “Jack, I think we should stick together.”</p><p>But Jack shook his head, and suddenly Gwen recognised the look in his eye. “No, Ianto. I’ve got a plan for me and Gwen, but given what we know now…” he held up Gwen’s PDA, “I’m not taking any chances with your safety tonight.”</p><p>“I can handle myself, Jack. I want to help!”</p><p>“I know. Still.” He tilted his head, coming back into Ianto’s eyeline after he’d glanced off to the side, avoiding his gaze. Jack’s voice went hard and cold suddenly, his expression unyielding. “Ianto, I’m giving you permission to sit this one out, but I <em>will</em> make that an order if I have to. So, you <em>stay. Here.</em> Understood?”</p><p>Ianto rolled his eyes, looking sullen to the point of mutiny. “Yes, <em>sir</em>.” Somehow, he managed to make it sound sarcastic despite using almost exactly the same intonation as he usually said it with, thought Gwen.</p><p>Still, she was having none of it. “Oi!” she said, rounding on Ianto, and Jack who had let go of him and was opening his mouth for a sharp retort. “Stop it both of you! For God’s sake, I’m having a really <em>shit</em> day and the last bloody thing I need is you two fighting. Ianto, you know Jack’s doing this for your own good. Jack, if you try and baby either of us through this you’ll have me to answer to. Either way… try and get along at least until we get home, yeah?”</p><p>They both stared at her for a moment, standing there with her hands balled into fists at her sides. Then, they both turned slowly and looked at each other.</p><p>“Look, Ianto...” said Jack with a sigh.</p><p>“It’s okay” said Ianto, quietly. “I’m sorry. I just hate feeling useless.”</p><p>“I know” said Jack. “And I’m sorry too. Really. If there was any other way...”</p><p>“Yeah. I know.”</p><p>Gwen nodded. “There we go. Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?”</p><p>At that moment, there was a sound from behind them, like someone clearing their throat discretely. “Um, excuse me… Captain Harkness?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Um, excuse me… Captain Harkness?”</p><p>They all turned at the same moment, startled by the sound of the voice, male and heavily Welsh accented. When they all turned around they saw a young man standing in the entrance to the alleyway, rather too scrawny for his height with a mop of sandy hair peeking out from under his hat and a smile too big for his face. Even in the dim light of the lamp and the pale half moon that was just beginning to rise behind him, she could see he had the same look as Nia about his features. Which meant Gwen knew exactly who this was; she made the very best effort she could to not let it show on her face. Beside her she felt Ianto’s arm tense almost imperceptibly against hers, and she knew he’d come to the same conclusion she had.</p><p>Jack was the first to respond, pasting on his most blinding grin. “Ah… sorry, we’ve met but I can’t recall...”</p><p>“Ifan” supplied the young man, “Ifan Jones.”</p><p>“Of course! What can I do for you, Ifan Jones?”</p><p>“Ah, just wanted to tell you your coach up to the castle is waiting, whenever you’re ready… you said eight o’clock before, and Mister Watkins says Sir Frederick is expecting to receive you at half past eight. Nia said your rooms are all prepared for you and Mrs Harkness and Mister Jones to change for dinner whenever you’re ready.”</p><p>Jack nodded. “Right you are. We’ll be there in a moment.”</p><p>“Will that be all?”</p><p>“Yes, thank you.”</p><p>“Sirs. Ma’am.” And with a quick bow, Ifan turned on his heel out of the alleyway.</p><p>“<em>God,</em> he’s so young” said Gwen as soon as Ifan had gone, shaking her head.</p><p>“He’s my age” said Ianto quietly, though this time he sounded more weary and upset than defensive.</p><p>“I know” said Jack, who just looked very old, and very sad, shoulders slumped as though carrying the weight of the world.</p><p>“Ifan Jones was my alias for the Serenity Plaza job” said Ianto, sounding far away.</p><p>“<em>I know</em>” said Jack again, hand quietly squeezing Ianto’s arm between them. A moment later though, Gwen saw him visibly pull himself together, his smile back in place in a moment. “Don’t think about it now” he said, more gently than usual. “...I’ve got an idea, or the start of one anyway. But I need to go see this room I apparently booked, first.”</p><p>“Why?” said Gwen, as Jack started to walk out of the alleyway.</p><p>“Gotta check something” said Jack vaguely. “Coming?”</p><p>She sighed, sharing a look with Ianto behind Jack’s back. “I suppose so.”</p>
<hr/><p>Nia had given Gwen a ring with two keys on it. The first one Jack tried in the lock was the wrong one; the second one turned, the door opening before them and allowing them into the upstairs room in the inn. “Home sweet home” said Jack, not without some nervousness, as he pushed it open.</p><p>“...<em>Whoa</em>” said Ianto.</p><p>“<em>Yeah</em>” breathed Gwen, stepping forward into the room and looking around. “God, Jack, if past you rented this room you were clearly here for a good reason. This must be half of Torchwood’s surveillance and monitoring gear.”</p><p>“Not to mention the weapons chest in the corner” said Ianto, pointing. “What were you planning to do, storm the castle?”</p><p>Gwen gave a low whistle, turning back to Jack. “You’re sure this isn’t ringing any bells for you?”</p><p>Jack shook his head, hands trailing over what looked like a field medical kit on the side table. “No idea. It was Alice and Emily’s case, but this...” he frowned deeper, running his hand over a leather document file in the corner, a heavy case with a combination lock, and a smaller tin box. Beside it was a map, beautiful copperplate print covered in directions and arrows, scribbled in red pencil. “Some of this stuff is mine” said Jack.</p><p>“You’re right” said Ianto, peering over his shoulder at the map. “That’s definitely your handwriting.”</p><p>Sure enough, Gwen saw that he was right. “I suppose you don’t remember writing that?” she asked.</p><p>Jack shook his head slowly, looking more troubled by the moment. “I don’t remember being involved in this case at all.”</p><p>“Okay” said Ianto, furrowing his brow and leaning against the wall. “That leaves me with... questions.”</p><p>“Yeah, like where the version of Jack is right now, that rented this room earlier” mused Gwen.</p><p>“Probably in the village” said Jack.</p><p>“You don’t know that.”</p><p>“No. But I know how my own brain works. If it was me… and apparently it is… then I’d be doing some poking around before my dinner appointment.”</p><p>“But that’s bad though, surely. He – you – could come back at any time.”</p><p>“The possibility had occurred to me” said Jack, with a grimace. “But I think we should be okay. Currently we’re running early. If I know me, I’ll be running a little late. Eight, Ifan said, so I’ll probably turn up at quarter past… it’s currently…”</p><p>“Six forty-three” supplied Ianto, checking his watch.</p><p>“Thank you. So, we should have a little time.”</p><p>“Okay” said Ianto. “But that wasn’t my question, anyway. I was going to ask what’s in the second room.”</p><p>They both looked at him.</p><p>“The middle one” Ianto elaborated. “There are three rooms in this inn. Constable Roberts has the one at the far end, we’re in this one, but there’s one in the middle, isn’t there?”</p><p>Gwen and Jack looked at each other. “Two keys” said Jack.</p><p>“Two keys” said Ianto. “Two rooms.”</p><p>“You’re not here alone?” ventured Gwen.</p><p>“No idea. Let’s go find out.”</p><p>As Jack unlocked the second room, Gwen and Ianto following with their guns drawn, braced for a fight just in case. But to Gwen’s relief this room was as deserted as the first. There was less equipment in this one, too; only a few boxes, and a tall, upright wooden case in the middle. It looked like something between an old-fashioned trunk and a wardrobe.</p><p>“Ah” said Ianto beside her, flatly. “Narnia, is it? At this point I’m not even surprised.”</p><p>Jack laughed a little nervously, popping open the latch. “Nah, sorry. No snowy woods or suspiciously hot ice witches offering you sweets.”</p><p>“Damn” said Ianto.</p><p>“Aw. I’ll give you some sugar when we get home” said Jack, patting him consolingly on the arm before going to prop open the case, before either of them could utter so much as a <em>please never </em><em>use that phrase</em><em> again</em>. “No, this is something much more useful. This is a full Torchwood disguise kit. They loved this sort of thing back then.”</p><p>“Huh” said Gwen, seeing that inside it really was a small wardrobe, complete with a hanging rail and compact shelves, long coats and dresses and all manner of folded clothes packed neatly inside. As she got closer, she saw that there was a small, old-fashioned Torchwood logo inlaid in wood on the exterior.</p><p>“Huh” said Ianto, reaching forward to touch one of the jackets. “I recognise these clothes… they’re all in the period clothing section of the archives. ...Were. Will be.”</p><p>“Yep” said Jack, smiling as he took out a stovepipe hat and put it on, at a jaunty angle. “Well. Looks like we shall go to the ball.”</p><p>“What do you mean?” said Gwen, instantly suspicious.</p><p>“Do <em>not</em> tell me you’re going to wear that anywhere” said Ianto.</p><p>“This? No” said Jack. “Little too 1860s. It’s the nineties now… the twentieth century is just around the corner and we need to dress like it, if we’re going to blend in.”</p><p>“Blend in…” said Ianto, frowning as he sorted through the jackets. “I suppose we may as well...”</p><p>“Jack, are you sure this is a good idea?” said Gwen, peering doubtfully at one of the dresses. “Won’t he – you – notice this stuff is gone?”</p><p>“Maybe. But I’ve got a bit of a plan for that too, I think.” He silenced her protest by taking a evening dress on a hanger off the rail with a low whistle. “This would suit you, Gwen. What d’you think, Ianto? Tailor’s son’s eye?”</p><p>“Oh, um… yes, definitely” said Ianto, blinking slightly. “It’s beautiful.”</p><p>Gwen took the dress in her hands; it was deep, dark green velvet, soft and rich with a tight bodice, ruched sleeves, and a neckline cut wide across the shoulders. It seemed a little formal, but perhaps that was just the time period. She frowned, as something else occurred to her. “Wait, don’t you need, um. A corset and stuff, to wear these old-fashioned dresses?”</p><p>“I should say so” said Jack. “And a bustle. The silhouette really doesn’t work without them. People would notice.”</p><p>“...I don’t have a corset, Jack.”</p><p>“It’s okay, there should be one here too” said Ianto, rummaging. “...Ah.”</p><p>“How the hell did you know that?”</p><p>Ianto flushed slightly, darting a glance at Jack. “Told you. All this stuff is in the period clothing section of the archives. Jack and I, uh, inventoried most of it one night a few months back.”</p><p>“...<em>Oh</em>” said Gwen, blushing too as she looked between them. “Okay.”</p><p>“Something for you to think about while you get dressed” said Jack, patting her briskly on the shoulder and grinning with more delight than the situation merited, Gwen thought. “Oh, and you’ll probably need someone to help you put that thing on, and do your hair… most upper-class women of this time period had ladies maids.”</p><p>“Bloody hell, that sounds inconvenient” complained Gwen, forestalling Jack’s inevitable offer of help with a glare. “Oh well, I’ll go find Nia. I want to talk to her again anyway.”</p><p>“Good. And on that note… I think we’ve got ourselves a plan. Or the start of one, anyway.”</p><p>“We have?” said Gwen.</p><p>“We have?” said Ianto at the same moment. Then he frowned. “Oh, no. Oh God, please tell me it’s not what I think.”</p><p>“Oh, yes.” Jack grinned at them both. “The main thing we need right now is information. Whatever’s going on here, it’s gotta be connected to Carrington, and the only place we’re gonna find out more is up in the castle. Agreed?”</p><p>“Probably...” said Ianto, eyeing Jack with intense suspicion.</p><p>“...And it seems like tonight, I’ve got an invitation to visit, including my own personal coach ride up to the door. Mrs Cooper-Williams… or should I say <em>Mrs Harkness</em>, for tonight. I notice you’ve got yourself a beautiful dress, but no place to go.” He stuck out his arm to Gwen. “Would you care to accompany me to dinner?”</p><p>“Uh, actually no I wouldn’t!” Gwen pushed his arm away. “Are you completely crazy, Jack? What happened to not interfering in this time?”</p><p>“Quite right, tell him Gwen” said Ianto. “Sorry Jack, but this is one of the worst plans I’ve ever heard.”</p><p>Jack spread his hands. "Go big or go home, right? Or, in this case go big <em>and</em> go home. That's the idea, anyway."</p><p>"I assume that sounded better in your head" said Ianto dryly.</p><p>Jack tutted. “You two… ever the critics.”</p><p>Ianto wasn’t listening. “It’s not even a plan! It probably amounts to walking into a trap! And what happens when the other version of you shows up, hmm?”</p><p>Jack grinned. “That’s where you come in.”</p><p>“...Oh no” said Ianto again, “no, Jack. Absolutely not.”</p><p>“Aw, c’mon. Why not?”</p><p>“Wait, what…?” said Gwen, looking between the two of them.</p><p>Jack sighed. “Currently, there’s a version of me from this time period, snooping around the village somewhere.”</p><p>“Probably” muttered Ianto darkly. “According to your hunch.”</p><p>“According to my hunch” agreed Jack, unfazed. “Soon enough though, he’s gonna come back here to get Ifan to take him to the castle for his dinner date with Sir Frederick Carrington. Except he won’t, because Gwen and I be the ones in that coach going up the mountain; we’ll already be on our way. Meanwhile, my past self will be here, being distracted by our very own, very distracting, Ianto Jones.”</p><p>Gwen glared at him. “Bloody <em>hell</em>, Jack, <em>please</em> tell me you’re not ordering Ianto to sleep with your past self for some kind of... time-travel scam. Because if you are, I’ll kill you myself.”</p><p>“No, no! Nothing like that!” protested Jack, giving them both wounded looks. “Did I really sound like I was suggesting that?”</p><p>“...You do always sound a little bit like you’re suggesting someone sleeps with someone, in general” said Ianto.</p><p>“He’s right, Jack.”</p><p>Jack sighed. “Just… talk to him, Ianto. Please?”</p><p>“Talk to him? About what?”</p><p>“Try and get information out of him, keep him talking. I know you can do that. If he’s been sent here by Torchwood, I’ll bet he’s not here because he wants to be… it was just my job, back then, and if I met a fascinating stranger like you, I know I’d have blown the mission off for a night–” he held up a placating hand as Gwen looked even more furious, “...okay, bad choice of words. But the point is, I’d have been happy to skip dinner with some stuffy old aristocrat and come back in the morning.”</p><p>“What if I can’t get him to listen? God knows I had a hard enough job getting through to you at the beginning.”</p><p>“But you did, didn’t you?” Jack’s face darkened, at Ianto’s impatient look. “...If all else fails… then you take him out. Sedative would be best, but he won’t take that or Retcon easily. Knows all the tricks; I used to use them on people. Still do. No, I think if he really gives you trouble, or tries to hurt you, knock him out – or kill him, just to be safe.”</p><p>“<em>Whoa</em>. Stop right there.” Ianto looked appalled. “I’m not doing that to you, Jack!”</p><p>“Look, I never said you had to, except in an emergency.” He took Ianto’s hand. “Just… however you do it… keep him away from the castle. That’s all we need, okay? Whatever happens here, it happens tonight. And I bet that’s something to do with why we got brought here, and that means it’s likely our ticket out of here.”</p><p>Gwen exchanged a glance with Ianto; she could see that he was wavering. She couldn’t deny the truth of the last part, but she didn’t like any of this either.</p><p>“Jack, this seems risky” said Gwen. “For Ianto, I mean.”</p><p>“As long as he stays in the village, he should be okay.” He turned to Ianto, raising his eyebrows. “Look, Ianto. All you need to do is stay safe and keep me out of the way until Gwen and I are able to find out what the hell’s going on, and a way to get us home. Anything else is just a bonus. Alice and Emily can handle this case and whatever mess we cause, I don’t care. My priority is you two.” He took Ianto’s hands in his, giving him that big-eyed, puppy-dog expression. “So? You in?”</p><p>Ianto rolled his eyes. “I suppose I haven’t got much choice, have I? ...Fine, okay.”</p><p>Jack nodded. “Gwen?”</p><p>She frowned. She had so many different fears and worries and objections to this plan that they all warred with one another for a second. But what ultimately came out of her mouth – to her own surprise – was, “Ianto… you really don’t mind me pretending to be married to Jack, do you? Only, I’d feel bad, if you though I was… I dunno.”</p><p>Ianto looked both rather surprised and touched that she’d asked. “Honestly, you’re welcome to him. After all, apparently I’m getting the vintage edition tonight” he said with a wry tone to his voice, but in his eyes there was that understanding again, that assurance that this didn’t affect anything. She hadn’t realised how much that had been bothering her. Not that it had stopped bothering her; the fact that Ianto didn’t mind was a small weight off her shoulders, but it still left the much larger discomfort, the ache in her heart of missing Rhys. She’d pretended to be married to both Jack and Ianto before for various undercover missions, of course she had. But now, when she was so impossibly far away from her real husband, her Rhys who she might never see again – and no, she couldn’t think like that, she couldn’t – then, well. The pretense bothered her more than it usually would, everything cutting a little closer to the bone.</p><p>But still, it was necessary if she wanted to get home. She drew herself up, taking a breath and exhaling slowly. “Well then” she said, putting a hand on Jack’s arm. “I guess it’s time we went visiting.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Is it supposed to fit like this?” said Gwen, shuffling from foot to foot and getting used to the feeling of her borrowed corset, which Nia was lacing tight behind her. “Feels a bit… weird.”</p><p>The three of them had decided to change in shifts, and currently she and Jack were dressing while Ianto kept watch for trouble, down in the pub below. As it was, Gwen was sitting in the room with the disguise cabinet, with Nia helping her dress. Ianto the cat was dozing on the dressing table, carefree, and Gwen was really starting to feel a little envious.</p><p>“Well, I suppose it’s surely going to feel different to, um… mountaineering gear?” said Nia doubtfully, tying the laces fast. She smiled apologetically at Gwen in the mirror. “It’s one of the older kind, like my auntie used to wear years ago, so I’m not surprised if it feels a little different from what you’re used to. But with respect, I think I put it on you right. And the dress should hide it; it’s so beautiful, just like the ones all the fine ladies in the fashion plates from Cardiff and even London wear! You’re going to look so lovely, Ma’am! Like a princess!”</p><p>“Mmph” said Gwen, not really sharing Nia’s enthusiasm. She shifted again, trying to get used to the way it cinched her waist. It didn’t restrict her movement nearly as much as she’d initially feared, but on the other hand it would certainly take some getting used to, the stiff boning forcing her to carry herself differently; more upright, with her shoulders back to balance the weight.</p><p>Still, despite having to rebalance her stance the solidity of it was comforting; it felt a little like wearing skin-tight body armour, which somehow put her at ease. Not that she thought a little whalebone and stiffened fabric would do much to stop anyone trying to shoot or stab her, but hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. And if it did, she had other ways to defend herself, and her friends.</p><p>She shook herself, looking at herself in the mirror in her corset over the long drawers and thin cotton shirt that joined to them, fine woollen stockings on her feet.</p><p>“Just got to put this in...” said Nia, reaching for something that lay on the dressing table, beside the fluffy grey form of Ianto the cat, purring softly in his sleep.</p><p>Gwen was quicker, reaching past to get the long, flat object, frowning as she tried to work out what it was for; it was a flat rod of whalebone, engraved with intricate and beautiful floral patterns, as well as an ornate letter <em>E</em>. “What’s this?” she wondered aloud.</p><p>“Oh, that’s your busk. For the front of the corset? Like I said, it’s one of the older ones you’ve got, but it’s so beautiful… is it an heirloom, Ma’am? If you don’t mind my asking?”</p><p>“…I… suppose so, yes” said Gwen, frowning as her thumb touched a small groove, around an inch from the bottom of the busk. Slotting her thumbnail into the groove, to her surprise there was a spring-loaded click; a moment later her eyebrows shot up as the whole thing came apart in two pieces to reveal that it was actually a sheath with a thin, wickedly sharp knife inside.</p><p>Nia’s eyes were wide in the mirror. “Oh… <em>goodness</em>” she breathed. “I’ve never seen one that does that before...”</p><p>Gwen smiled, clicking it back together and handing it to Nia, who came around and slid it through the thin cloth pocket – that was clearly for this exact purpose, Gwen realised – that ran down the front of her corset.</p><p>“There we go” said Nia. “Now, let’s get your bustle...”</p><p>This turned out of be a sort of cushion of fabric that tied around her waist; as Nia tied the cotton tapes at the front, Gwen caught sight of the girl’s face; she was biting her lip, looking very much troubled by something.</p><p>“Nia, what is it?” said Gwen at last, and saw Nia freeze on the way to pick up one of the voluminous petticoats that they’d brought out for Gwen to wear.</p><p>“N-nothing!” said Nia. “Sorry, Ma’am.”</p><p>“Nia” said Gwen gently, as Nia came forward and helped her slip the petticoat over her head, tying that too around her waist. “I promise you don’t have to be like this around me. We’re friends, remember?”</p><p>“...Like what, Ma’am?” said Nia, chewing her lip.</p><p>“Like...” Gwen frowned, about to say <em>like a servant</em>, before remembering that she was impersonating an aristocrat and had in fact asked Nia to help her with dressing for dinner at the castle; of course the girl was going to be quiet, subservient, and aiming to please. Especially if, as Mari had said, they’d been getting fewer and fewer people coming here lately from outside. Gwen felt a rush of sympathy; whatever happened tonight, she knew, Nia and her family would leave the village soon one way or the other, since she knew it had been abandoned and never repopulated when Carrington disappeared.</p><p>When he <em>would</em> disappear. Tonight. Gwen frowned, realising she’d drifted off again into her own thoughts as Nia helped her into the bodice of the green velvet dress; the fabric was heavy, warmer and thicker than those she was used to, but it left her shoulders bare. “Look, all I’m saying is, it’s okay” Gwen told Nia, as the girl adjusted the drape of the skirts around Gwen’s hips. She pushed Gwen gently down into the chair again, helping her on with her tight, short-heeled boots. “I’m very grateful for all of this. Really. And…” she frowned. “If anything’s bothering you...”</p><p>“Um, Ma’am, if you don’t mind me asking...” said Nia, before she broke off.</p><p>“What?” said Gwen, reaching for the necklace she’d chosen; a bright green jewel, on a ribbon tied high around her throat. Her hand ran over it as it fell cold against her skin.</p><p>“Stay sitting please, Ma’am” said Nia. “I need to start on your hair.”</p><p>Gwen nodded. “Nia…”</p><p>“It’s only...” said Nia, abruptly. “The three of you… oh, but it’s none of my business...”</p><p>“No, what, sweetheart?” she caught Nia’s eye in the mirror. “What about us?”</p><p>“Um.” Nia’s fingers trembled as he took a section of Gwen’s hair. “It’s just… you’re not who you say you are, are you?”</p><p>Gwen’s breath caught in her chest. Then she chuckled. “What gave it away?”</p><p>At this, Nia gave a very tiny smile. “Um, the fact that you couldn’t seem to agree on who you were or what you were doing here. The, ah – forgive me – odd way you all talk. Also, the knife in your corset. I’d wager you’re expecting someone to try and hurt you… which means you’re probably not just going to see Sir Frederick for a social visit.”</p><p>Gwen sighed. “Very astute of you.”</p><p>Nia shrugged, dropping her eyes demurely again. “I haven’t said nothing about it outside this room, mind. And I still won’t. Only...”</p><p>“Yes?” said Gwen, picking up on the note of worry in Nia’s voice, the slight tremble in her hands as she started to pin up a section of Gwen’s hair.</p><p>“Only… I’m worried, Ma’am. I’m worried about you going up to the castle, because… because I told you, earlier, about what happened with Mistress Charlotte.”</p><p>“Oh yes! What <em>did</em> happen with her?” asked Gwen, curious once more; with everything that had happened she’d almost forgotten. <br/>“<em>I dunno!</em>” said Nia, trembling in earnest now. “I only know no one at the time believed it was the fever that really took Mistress Charlotte and her poor little children… but I don’t know more than that! No one does, I promise that’s the truth!”</p><p>“So…?” prompted Gwen. “What’re you scared of, Nia?”</p><p>Nia hesitated. “It... it was <em>Nettie</em> that told me that, and I <em>told</em> you she told me, and I… I really don’t want Nettie to get in trouble, because she’s my… my best friend and she’s supposed to marry Ifan, and Mam wants that for both of them because maybe then we can get away from here, and… and I know it’s silly, I know I should be happy for them, but… but Nettie… Ifan...” she swallowed, steadying her hands on Gwen’s hair again. “I want them to be happy. And I want them to be <em>safe</em><span>, </span><span>that’s all</span>” she said, loud and clear as though trying to convince herself. “That’s all I want.”</p><p>Something settled into place in Gwen’s understanding, all at once.</p><p>“Nia...” said Gwen, frowning and looking at Nia in the mirror, catching her gaze and holding it. “...Are you in love with Nettie?”</p><p>Nia’s hands froze in Gwen’s hair, the transformation instant; her eyes went wide and terrified. “Wh-what d’you mean?!?” she said. “Why would you say that? Nettie’s to marry Ifan, and besides, she’s a girl! She’s my best friend, of… of course I love her, but...”</p><p>“That’s not what I asked” said Gwen, her heart aching for this girl she barely knew. Nia looked like she <em>wanted</em> to talk, was the thing. She was biting down on her lip as though trying to physically keep the words from spilling from her mouth, face turning bright pink. Gwen smiled in the mirror, raising her eyebrows, prompting Nia to talk to her once more.</p><p>“It was only a few kisses!” blurted Nia. “And… well. That time she came down to the village and had to stay the night, and of course she slept in my bed because she had since we were children, you know, but we… we weren’t children anymore, and we… we…” she had flushed scarlet, avoiding Gwen’s eye in the mirror, but her words were coming so fast now, she seemed unable to stop. “But I didn’t mean nothing by it! And I know… I know Reverend Lewis over at St John’s in Aberdare where we go on Sundays, he said that men can’t… um. But he never said nothing about women and women, you understand! And… ah...”</p><p>“Don’t you listen to the Reverend, Nia” said Gwen. “Religion is all well and good for some people, but not… for stuff like this” she finished awkwardly, feeling a little out of her depth; Nia looked extremely doubtful, her hands trembling on a strand of Gwen’s hair. “As long as it’s all, ah, consenting adults...” Gwen sighed, trying a different tack. “Nia... it doesn’t matter that she’s a girl. Girls fall in love with girls all the time, and don’t let anyone tell you different. Boys can fall in love with boys, too, and, um… there’s some people that aren’t either, at least not all the time. There’s a whole world of possibilities out there, bigger than you can dream.”</p><p>Nia stared at her, wide-eyed, as though Gwen had sprouted an extra head. “...Really?” she said at last, very faintly.</p><p>Gwen smiled encouragingly. “Really” she said. She frowned; she didn’t want to give Nia any advice that might lead her to come to harm, and she felt rather out of her depth here; Jack would be better for this, he thought. But, apparently, it was her that Nia had come to trust enough to speak to, so her it would have to be. But thinking of Jack made Gwen think of what he’d told her earlier. “Some people won’t be kind about it” she said. “But some people? Some people <em>will</em> be kind.” She patted the back of Nia’s hand over her shoulder, then turned around to look at her properly. “Stick with those ones.”</p><p>“Even… even if that was true…” said Nia, very cautiously.</p><p>“Yes?” prompted Gwen.</p><p>“Sometimes I feel I’m betraying Ifan” admitted Nia, in a very small voice. “He and Nettie are engaged to be married.”</p><p>“...Oh” said Gwen, her heart sinking. “Does she <em>want</em> to marry him? Does he want to marry her, for that matter?”</p><p>“...They don’t <em>not</em> want to. Mam wants them to so Nettie can be part of our family, and leave with us when we sell the inn and go; she’s wanted to ever since the hunts stopped coming through, and Sir Frederick stopped having so many guests from the city. But it’s more than that: Mam wants the two of them to get away from the castle, see, and if Nettie’s marrying Ifan, Sir Frederick’ll be more likely to let her go.”</p><p>“Okay” said Gwen. “But how do Nettie and Ifan feel about it?”</p><p>Nia shrugged, looking upset. “They like each other well enough… and, uh. I talked to Ifan… he said he cares for Nettie, we were all friends from when we were young, see, and he said he wanted to make sure she and I didn’t get separated...” she tailed off, as though she’d realised something. “He said he’d always protect us.”</p><p>“That’s good!” said Gwen, desperately suppressing the pang in her chest at what she knew about tonight, and Ifan. “That sounds like it means Ifan wouldn’t mind, if you and Nettie...” she broke off, as Nia’s eyes had gone huge and worried again. “I’m just saying” she said, patting Nia’s arm with an encouraging smile. “If you talk to your brother, and Nettie, then maybe you three can work something out.”</p><p>“You mean… we could both...” Nia was blushing again, apparently too embarrassed to talk.</p><p>“Look, all I’m saying is, it’s quite possible for two people to share one person. You just have to talk about it, make sure you’re all on the same page.”</p><p>Nia frowned suddenly. “...Is that… what you and your brother Ianto do, with your husband the Captain? Only, I thought…” Nia flushed even more brilliantly. “But forgive me, I’ve been too bold.”</p><p>“Wh – <em>no!</em> I mean, ah, they are… but I’m not...” Gwen collected herself, and gave Nia a conspiratorial smile. “Do you want to know a secret?”</p><p>Nia leaned in and nodded, eyes huge. Even the cat had woken up and was peering up at her curiously.</p><p>Gwen scritched his fur and smiled at Nia. “My <em>husband</em>… is not my real husband.”</p><p>“What? Captain Harkness? <em>No!</em>” Nia gaped at her, then looked horrified. “Are you here against your will? Did Captain Harkness kidnap you? ...Shall I call the constable?” she gasped. “...Or did you run away with him?”</p><p>Gwen laughed. “None of those things. Jack’s a friend of mine… well, we work together. And, you can’t tell anyone, but we’re only pretending to be married. Oh, and Ianto’s not my real brother either. Though he might as well be; I love him like one.”</p><p>Nia nodded, thinking about this for a moment. “Are you detectives?”</p><p>“…Something like that” said Gwen.</p><p>“Whoa…” Nia looked astounded. “Do you have a real husband, then?”</p><p>“Yes.” She smiled gently, touching her wedding ring. “He’s far away right now. But I hope I can get home to him soon.”</p><p>“I hope you do too” said Nia.</p><p>Gwen smiled, turning back to the mirror. “Well, to do that, I need to be ready to go to dinner with Sir Frederick tonight” she said, taking the earrings that Nia handed her, bright jewels matching the necklace. “My <em>husband</em> and I don’t want to keep him waiting.”</p><p>Nia giggled tentatively, getting the hint and going to pick up the comb she’d dropped, and tidying away the rest of the things they’d brought in; Gwen heard soft cat’s feet running to the door as Nia let him slip out into the corridor. “Right you are, Ma’am.”</p><p>“Please” she said. “Call me Gwen.”</p><p>Nia blushed. “Gwen” she said, as though testing out the sound of the name. “Um. Thank you. For… everything.”</p><p>“Any time, sweetheart. Any time.”</p><p>Nia nodded, drawing back to let Gwen examine her reflection. “Now, there we are then. You look beautiful, Ma– <em>Gwen</em>.”</p><p>Gwen regarded herself in the mirror; she couldn’t deny that Nia’s statement was correct, but she barely recognised herself in the green dress and jewels, her hair pinned up high to bare her face and neck. She found herself wishing – not for the first time, and she was sure not for the last tonight – that Rhys was here with her, both to see her like this and to tell her that everything would be okay; she needed it badly right now.</p><p>But there was no help for that now. She sighed, smiling at Nia, and turning away from the mirror to her as Nia held up the fur-lined outdoor cape; just as well, Gwen thought, with how cold it was outside. Better still, it had several large inner pockets into which she took a moment to slip her gun – Jack had said he’d try to liberate some more ammunition from the other room – her earpiece – much good as that would do her – and the pocket contents of the jacket she’d been wearing back in the twenty-first century. She sighed, wishing she could carry more; at least she still had the knife in her corset, if it came to really desperate circumstances.</p><p>Battle armour, Gwen thought. She knew that the only way she could get through this was to walk into it like a soldier, head held high, to fight her way through until she, Jack and Ianto could get home. The last thing she did was pull on the fine gloves, buttoning them at her wrists. “Well” she said to Nia, leaning down to kiss her on the cheek and give her the biggest smile she could muster. “Time to go.”</p><hr/><p>Gwen walked out into the corridor with slight trepidation, getting used to walking in her new clothes as she stepped across the floorboards; Nia had already followed Ianto the cat down the stairs, with the promise to fetch <em>her</em> Ianto from the down by the bar.</p><p>“Jack?” she said, knocking quietly on his door. “You nearly ready in there?”</p><p>“You know it.” She heard steps, and then the door opened to reveal Jack, giving her a rakish wink and a grin; he was dressed in a neatly pressed red officer’s dress uniform, complete with epaulettes and a ceremonial sabre at his hip. On anyone else it might have made her laugh, but it suited Jack… very well, Gwen thought, blushing involuntarily. A moment later Jack’s smile widened into something sly as he gave her thorough once-over and a low whistle. “Looking good, Gwen.”</p><p>“Stop it, you” said Gwen. She patted him on the arm as she received a pout. “Aw, don’t be like that. You look good too, Jack. You know you do.”</p><p>“<em>Yeah</em> I do. Not my usual look for this time period… but you know. Gotta change it up sometimes. ...Now I think about it, I did kiss a hot-but-boring Lieutenant Colonel on leave from this regiment once in 1901 in a gin bar by Cardiff docks, so I’m sure that counts for something...”</p><p>“As long as no one’s going to call you on it, save the anecdotes for the way back.” She tore her eyes away from him and glanced around. “Now, where’s–”</p><p>Even as she said it there was a voice from the back stairs behind her.</p><p>“Jack? Gwen? Are you ready for – <em>oh</em>.”</p><p>They both turned at the same time to see Ianto coming up the back stairs, frozen in the doorway with an expression that looked like someone had hit him in the face. Gwen couldn’t say she didn’t relate; Ianto was dressed in a short, rough wool jacket and waistcoat, trousers that were just a little bit too tight for him and an off-white shirt that was a little too loose, secured at the collar with a strip of linen. He was also wearing a flat cap like the one they’d seen Ifan in, and staring at them both before his eyes gravitated to Jack, mouth practically hanging open. “Um” he said. “Hi.”</p><p>“Well <em>hello</em> there” said Jack, stepping forward past Gwen. “Dressing down, huh? I like it.”</p><p>“I thought it would be easier to blend in this way” said Ianto. “If I’m going to be asking around here, I don’t know that pretending to be a posh boy from the city is the right approach after all...”</p><p>“Good thinking.” Jack nodded, eyes sultry. “You look quite the country lad...”</p><p>“A proper valleys boy, born and raised” said Ianto, accent thickening, with a sly smirk. “And you, sir? Don’t get many soldiers ‘round here.”</p><p>Gwen rolled her eyes, as they stood in front of each other in the corridor, eye to eye. “Look, we just got new clothes. Do you two think you can keep them on for at least five minutes?” She came up behind Jack, poking his arm. “Oi! People are gonna think my fake husband is cheating before we even start this.”</p><p>Jack tore his eyes away from Ianto to grin at Gwen. “Well, maybe a bit of scandal is just what our fake marriage needs, huh? Spice things up with your officer husband having an affair. You can have one too, if you want!” He raised his eyebrows. “Or, you’re welcome to join in…”</p><p>She looked between Jack and Ianto, who, she realised, was staring intently at her too. “Down, boys. I’m a married woman.” She couldn’t help but smile though, putting her hands on their arms. “Right, now we’ve established that we all look hot as hell in these clothes, can we please get over it and get on with this?”</p><p>“Good idea” said Ianto, visibly wiping the rather poleaxed expression off his face and replacing it with something approximating serious and focused.</p><p>“Right you are” said Jack. “Everyone know the plan?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“Yep.”</p><p>“Good.” Jack put his hands on each of their arms, checking they were really alone in the corridor. Gwen didn’t miss the way he hesitated, as though reluctant. “Our ride’s waiting downstairs, so… we roll out.”</p><p>Ianto nodded. “Well, that’s goodbye from me for now, then.”</p><p>Gwen, unable to stop herself, flung her arms around him, so hard he nearly overbalanced. “Please don’t die” she said, pressed against Ianto’s shoulder. “I don’t think I could bear it.”</p><p>“I’ll do my best to avoid it, yeah.” He brought his hand up and patted her on the back. “And the same to you. Be safe, okay? ...And keep Jack out of trouble.”</p><p>She gave a slightly teary laugh, standing with her back upright and taking a big breath. “I’ll do my best.”</p><p>It was Jack’s turn to step forward to Ianto, as Gwen moved aside to let them have their moment. Jack held Ianto’s gaze, raising his eyebrows. “Remember, find out anything you can, but your own safety takes priority; assume there’s a target on your back, and don’t try anything crazy. This doesn’t fall under normal field protocol. The comms won’t work; they need a satellite connection, since we’ll be too far for Bluetooth even if the batteries in the earpieces last. Phones’ll be the same, so you won’t be able to contact us. Don’t go near the waterfall, be <em>very</em> careful what you say to people, especially about future events, and if anything goes wrong–”</p><p>“Withdraw and wait for you and Gwen, yes, you said. Twice” said Ianto, though without any resentment in it. “Don’t <em>fuss</em>, Jack.”</p><p>Jack made a face. “I wasn’t–”</p><p>“You were” said Gwen and Ianto, at the same time.</p><p>Jack sighed. “Okay, fine. Just... trust your judgement, Ianto. I know I do.”</p><p>“Yes, sir.”</p><p>Jack smiled, stepping forward and cupping Ianto’s face with both hands, scrutinising him for a moment before kissing him softly on the lips. “See you on the other side.”</p><p>He turned away with a wink, offering his arm to Gwen, and they both walked off down to the narrow hallway to the stairs, leaving Ianto alone.</p><hr/><p>After Jack and Gwen had walked away, Ianto simply stood there for a moment, tamping down the nervous feeling swirling up through his chest. He checked his watch, seeing that it was ten to eight; he’d planned for enough time for a quick go-over of the Torchwood equipment in the room Jack had left, just to see if he could find anything they’d missed before.</p><p>Once inside his eyes skimmed over boxes and bags; he frowned, running his fingers over a tin case about the size of a small paperback. Its clasp had a combination lock, with twelve wheels of numbers.</p><p>Ianto’s mind went to the access code he’d committed to memory back in the tunnel. If it was really Jack’s code, then that would be just another piece of evidence that Jack really was here. Out of curiosity, he began to enter the numbers, setting the wheels one by one.</p><p>The box clicked open, and he saw a row of six vials lined up alongside an old-fashioned hypodermic syringe, sunk into the soft inner lining as though their contents were precious. Inside each was a clear, colourless liquid. The labels of the vials were blank.</p><p>Ianto frowned, closing the case again carefully. He was just wondering whether he should risk slipping it into his pocket, when something caught his eye; a flash of light at the window. He was just quick enough to catch the tail-end of a bright flare of golden light, before it was gone.</p><p>He rushed to the window, throwing open the shutters and pressing his face to the cold glass, but it was no good; there was only the view down into the alleyway and the sky above, the half moon starting its slow path across a clear winter sky strewn with stars.</p><p>Ianto blinked a few times against the moon’s bright light, wondering briefly if what he’d seen before had been his imagination, just a reflection perhaps. But it had looked so familiar, that golden light; almost exactly like–</p><p><em>C</em><em>lick</em>.</p><p>Ianto froze, breath hitching in his throat as he heard the sound of a gun being cocked close at hand, felt the cold press of metal at the base of his skull an instant later.</p><p>Ianto’s heart sank; he didn’t need to turn around to know who was behind him. He’d recognise the sound of those footsteps anywhere now he wasn’t distracted, and even the familiar well-loved smell of him drifting into the room.</p><p>Sure enough, before he could move he heard a very, very familiar voice behind him, lowered to a warning snarl.</p><p>“Okay, here’s what happens now” said Jack. “You’re gonna tell me who the hell you are and what you’re doing here, starting with why you’re snooping through my things. If you don’t, I’ll shoot you in the head. Deal?”</p>
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<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Okay, backup plan number three… no wait. Four” said Gwen, counting off on her gloved fingers as the coach trundled up the mountain path. “We turn around and go back down, pick up Ianto and get Ifan to drive us to Cardiff instead. We go see your bosses at Torchwood–”</p><p>“Probably not a good idea” commented Jack, frowning out the small window.</p><p>“–And get them to use the Rift Manipulator to send us home...”</p><p>“<em>Definitely</em> not a good idea. Even if we could get them to do it–”</p><p>“...And if they don’t want to cooperate, we sneak into the place and do it ourselves. I bet Ianto would be good at that, and you worked for Torchwood back then – um, now – so you know all the codes, don’t you?”</p><p>“No! Gwen, d’you think I had access to the Rift Manipulator?” snapped Jack, folding his arms. “I wasn’t always the boss… I was barely more than an enforcer at this point. They’d send me in to nab rogue blowfish, or get cut up by particularly energetic weevils. Helps tire ‘em out.”</p><p>Gwen frowned, at the edge in his voice. “Okay, fine. Alternative plan… five. We send the codes to operate the Rift Manipulator in <em>our</em> time to Rhys–”</p><p>“Absolutely not.”</p><p>“Hear me out!” said Gwen. “We send him the codes…”</p><p>“And how the hell would we do that?”</p><p>“I dunno, uhhh… a photo? A mysterious series of clues? Tosh seemed to do okay that time you two got stuck in nineteen forty-one–”</p><p>Jack gave her an incredulous look. “Oh you’re counting <em>that</em> as our great success story? Look, Tosh did the best she could back then, but it didn’t exactly work out well, did it?”</p><p>“Well it’s more than <em>you</em> were doing, pissing about chasing some man you just met while Ianto was back at the Hub pointing a gun at Owen just to uphold your orders!” shot back Gwen.</p><p>Jack winced. “Look, Gwen, it doesn’t matter right now. We are <em>not</em> using the Rift Manipulator” he said. “Even if we could somehow get Rhys into the Hub...”</p><p>“We <em>could</em>. We could go to Torchwood Three, set up a special one-off security pass to start at the exact right time, or–”</p><p>“Even if we did do that, which we will not be, I’m not gonna let anyone open the Rift again. You saw what happened last time. Hell, you waited by my dead body for three days afterwards, so I’m sure you had a lot of time to contemplate.”</p><p>Gwen glared back at him. “Well, we won’t have Bilis pulling the strings this time, will we? And besides, what are the chances there could be two giant death demons imprisoned under the Rift since the beginning of time, hmm?”</p><p>“Not zero!” grumbled Jack.</p><p>“Oh, you have <em>got</em> to be kidding” said Gwen, rolling her eyes. She sighed, as the coach turned a corner of the switchback. “What are they doing down there, playing poker?”</p><p>Jack sighed, reaching across to take her gloved hands in his own and still their gesturing. “Gwen. I know you’re scared. But no using the Rift Manipulator. ...Not unless there’s absolutely no other option. Okay?”</p><p>She sighed, shoulders drooping just a little. “Okay. Yeah, I know, Jack.”</p><p>“And I would prefer not to get Rhys involved in this.”</p><p>“Oh God, me too” Gwen assured him, patting him on the back of his hands. “I’m just trying to go through our options, you know? Because right now our great masterplan is go up to the castle and speak to the man who lives there, and that’s… not much.”</p><p>Jack sighed. “We’re here for information” he said. “You saw those weird Rift traces. Something’s causing them, I’m sure of it. And if they brought us here...”</p><p>“Maybe they can send us back, yeah, I know.”</p><p>“Right.”</p><p>They were both silent for a moment.</p><p>“...And if all that lot wasn’t enough, I’m still a bit worried about Ianto” admitted Gwen.</p><p>“Ianto can handle himself. And he’s good at improvising” said Jack stiffly; even to Gwen’s ears it sounded as though he was trying to convince himself. “...But... I’m worried too.”</p><p>Gwen squeezed his hands back. “He’ll be okay” she said. “He will.”</p><p>He nodded. “I know” he said, and she could tell he appreciated the effort. “Now, tell me again. What exactly was it that Nia said to you, about Charlotte Carrington?”</p><p>“Oh” said Gwen. “Um, nothing much specific. Just that no one actually saw the bodies of Charlotte and her children, when they died. It was put about that it was the outbreak of typhoid that killed them, but apparently rumours spread among the servants that it was something else? Maybe?” Gwen frowned. “I did wonder if Carrington might be to blame. Or maybe his butler, um...” she snapped her fingers as she tried to call the name back to the forefront of her mind, wishing Ianto was here with his perfect recall, “...Watkins, she said his name was. He’s the only one that saw the bodies, according to Nia.”</p><p>Jack was frowning. “Where’s she getting her information?”</p><p>“Nettie. Uh, Annette, works in the kitchens. Came with the Carrington family from London, I think. She’s also engaged to Ifan” said Gwen, dropping her voice slightly, even though the rattle of the coach wheels on the steep road easily precluded the possibility of him hearing, from where he was perched to drive the horses along. “Nia’s also in love with Nettie. ...I wondered if when we were in there, I could try and find some excuse to talk to her, win her trust by saying I know Ifan and Nia, and ask her if she knows any more...”</p><p>Jack nodded approvingly. “Might be worth a shot. Good work, Gwen.”</p><p>She sighed, dropping her voice a little more. “I just… feel bad for those three. Nia, Nettie, Ifan. They’re hardly more than kids, and they certainly didn’t ask to be involved in any of this. At least you and me and Ianto signed up for it, sort of.”</p><p>“I know. But that’s the way it is” said Jack, not unkindly.</p><p>“...Yeah” said Gwen. “I know.”</p><p>At that moment the ground below them leveled off, as the coach drew to a stop in the paved courtyard at the top of the path. Gwen felt an odd sense of déjà vu as Ifan hopped down from the driver’s seat and came to open the doors for them, Jack taking her hand and helping her step down onto the flagstones. It had only been earlier this same day, a matter of hours ago for her, that Jack had driven them up here in the SUV; her heart ached slightly as she thought of that very morning, Ianto putting on his warm hat to get out of the car and the chill as the wind tugged at her clothes, the three of them sharing a thermos of coffee and the pale light of a cloudy morning illuminating their first view of the valley’s majestic curve. Now it was night, and more to the point it was over a century ago, and she had no idea how or when she’d be going home to Rhys, and everything felt suffused with danger and uncertainty.</p><p>And again, beside them was the ever-present roar of the waterfall, hurling itself ceaselessly over the cliffs. Despite her fur-lined cloak Gwen shivered a little as she stared at it. Then she frowned, realising something was different; there was some sort of structure erected over the waterfall, that hadn’t been there in the twenty-first century; a great row of mechanical wheels half recessed into the water, turning fast in the powerful, endless torrent. The wheels connected to a series of pistons that disappeared down into a heavy cast-iron housing, the whole contraption accessed by a narrow bridge with a low parapet. She met Jack’s eye, seeing him frown slightly as he took this in.</p><p>“Now, what’s <em>that</em> powering?” she heard Jack mutter under his breath.</p><p>“Oh, those’re some of Sir Frederick’s contraptions!” said Ifan cheerily, emerging from behind the horses where they snorted clouds of hot breath into the freezing air. “You’ll see more when you go in the house I expect, but I don’t blame you for looking Captain, Ma’am. I don’t suppose there’s anything like ‘em in all the world!”</p><p>“I’m sure” said Jack thoughtfully. “And I’m looking forward to getting a closer look.”</p><p>“What about you?” Gwen asked Ifan nervously. “Where will you be? I mean… will you be alright?”</p><p>Ifan nodded. “If you please Ma’am, I’m to wait and take you down to the village again.”</p><p>“Yes, right. Of course” said Gwen. “Just… stay inside if you can, will you? It’s a cold night tonight, and that waterfall… seems dangerous. I wouldn’t go too near.” She smiled quickly at his perplexed look, avoiding the warning glance Jack was giving her. “Take care of yourself, okay?”</p><p>“Um, yes of course Ma’am. Captain.” Ifan gave a brief little bow, before glancing at someone behind them. “Ah, there’s Mister Watkins, come to take you in.”</p><p>They both looked up the stairs, to see a middle-aged man in an immaculately-pressed suit coming down the stairs from the doorway; tall and broad-chested and strong with early grey hair turned pure silver by the moonlight. “Watkins… the butler, yeah?” recalled Gwen.<br/>
“The very same” said Ifan. “Will you, um, excuse me?”</p><p>“Of course” said Jack, flicking Ifan a coin from his pocket with a smile and a wink. Gwen thought it was just as well that she had him here, because she wouldn’t have thought about tipping otherwise. “Go on, go see to the horses and then get yourself a hot meal in the kitchens.”</p><p>Ifan nodded his thanks, and Jack offered Gwen his arm once more as they both turned to the approaching butler.</p><p>She let him take her elbow, drawing in a deep breath and leaning slightly against the warmth of him, preparing for whatever was to come.</p><p>“Captain and Mrs Harkness?” said Watkins, bowing as he reached them. He sounded English rather than Welsh, Gwen noted; she supposed he too must have come with the Carringtons from London, then. “I wish you a pleasant evening. I’m to escort you to Sir Frederick in his parlour before dinner.”</p><p>Jack gave him a gracious smile. “Well, lead the way then.”</p>
<hr/><p>Ianto put his hands up, very slowly, as the muzzle of Jack’s gun pressed up against the nape of his neck, starting to take the heat of his skin.</p><p>“I <em>said</em>–”</p><p>“I heard” said Ianto quietly, swallowing down his fear and trying to keep the tremble from his voice. Getting shot by Jack, of all people, would just be embarrassing. “I don’t mean you any harm” he told Jack, making sure to keep his empty hands in view.</p><p>“Yeah?” said Jack. “I just came back and saw the coach I was supposed to take up the mountain already driving off without me. Then I come up here and there’s some guy in my room, and, well, I’m not normally one to complain, you know? But I happen to not like people going through my stuff. And all in all, this seems more and more like a stitch-up with every passing minute.”</p><p>“It’s not” said Ianto, mentally running through possible strategies, at the same time extremely grateful that Gwen and Jack seemed to be safely on their way. “I swear, this isn’t what you think.”</p><p>“Give me one good reason why I should believe that.” From the corner of his eye he saw Jack pick up the tin box of vials from the table beside him with his free hand, clamping it closed. Ianto winced; circumstantially, that <em>really</em> didn’t look good. “And for that matter, one good reason I shouldn’t pull this trigger.”</p><p>“It would make a terrible mess?” Ianto frowned, thinking of his own Jack. “...Also... if you shoot me now, one day you’re <em>really</em> going to regret it.”</p><p>“Ha. Really think you’re in a position to threaten me right now?”</p><p>“Not a threat” said Ianto lightly, resisting the urge to bolt for the window. “Just a factual observation.”</p><p>Perhaps it was something in his voice that made Jack hesitate. “...What do you mean by that?”</p><p>“Um...” Ianto licked his lips, wondering what he should and shouldn’t say. “...Look, can I turn around? I don’t mean you any harm, but… it’s a bit hard to have a conversation like this.”</p><p>Again, Jack hesitated. Then Ianto felt the angular press of metal recede. He waited just a moment more, then, very cautiously, keeping his hands in the air, he turned around inch by inch.</p><p>And there, standing in front of him, was Jack. Ianto’s eyes widened as he took him in; of course, he’d expected him to <em>look</em> like Jack, as well as sound and smell like him and act like him… of course he had. But seeing him in the flesh was different. Especially considering Jack still had his gun trained closely on Ianto, his expression cold and hard and utterly devoid of recognition.</p><p>For a long, long moment they stared at each other, the hush in the room stretching on and on, filled with tension as Jack’s eyes roamed over him.</p><p>It was Ianto who finally broke the silence; unfortunately, the first thing that came out of his shocked mouth was, “...sideburns? <em>Really?</em>”</p><p>Jack frowned, hand going to the side of his face. “<em>Hey</em>, what’s wrong with…?” he broke off, leveling his gun at Ianto once more. “Never mind that. Who the hell are you? Start talking.”</p><p>Ianto’s mind raced, distracted by the sight of Jack; so familiar, and yet with none of the warmth and affection with which he usually looked back at Ianto. Even his pale grey wool Ulster was different from the usual greatcoat that Ianto had cleaned and repaired for him so many times, that sometimes felt like part of Jack himself. The full effect was disquieting, for reasons that had little to do with the gun pointed at him.</p><p>Though, that was also a concern, Ianto thought. It wasn’t the first time he’d had Jack threaten him thus, but that wasn’t exactly a comfort either. He frowned, knowing he needed a plan, and fast.</p><p>“Hey! Are you listening to–”</p><p>“Two seven eight eight five six seven four nine nine three one!” Ianto rattled off, struck by sudden inspiration. He felt encouraged as Jack looked a little caught off guard by this. “Your secure access code to the Torchwood Institute. You’re Captain Jack Harkness, Torchwood contracted agent, is that correct?”</p><p>“...That depends on who you think you are.”</p><p>“Ah yes, they told me you might be… impertinent.” Ianto made a show of tutting. “Jones. Ianto Jones. Torchwood overseer. Torchwood One that is” he said, in response to Jack’s unasked question. “I’ve been sent here to relieve you of your mission. You’re to stand down for the evening and await orders from above.”</p><p>“I wasn’t briefed on this back in Cardiff.”</p><p>“The orders were over your branch’s head. Three’s just an outpost anyway, we’re taking this case out of Alice and Emily’s hands” he said, remembering what his own Jack had told him earlier. Ianto raised his eyebrows. “Well? Are you going to keep pointing that gun at me? Because if I die you’ll have to answer for it, from above. It won’t be pleasant for you.”</p><p>He wasn’t sure he hadn’t imagined the briefest flash of fear that crossed Jack’s face as he lowered his gun; if Jack’s every mannerism and tic hadn't been so familiar to him, he was sure he wouldn’t have noticed anything at all. Suddenly, Ianto felt a little guilty, as he wondered exactly what Jack had been through that would cause such a reaction. “I mean, uh,” he said, trying not to let it throw him off, “there’s no need for this change of plans to cause… <em>friction</em> between our two branches of the institute. You’ll still get paid, don’t worry about that, but you’re getting the night off.” Belatedly, he remembered that he was supposed to be gathering information here. “But first I’m to, ah, debrief you on what you’ve gathered on this case so far...”</p><p>And there it was, the beginnings of Jack’s usual grin. “...Ianto Jones, was it?” he said the name like he was trying out the sound of it and liked what he found, and Ianto’s heart ached at how familiar the syllables of it sounded in Jack’s voice. But already Jack was winking at him, with a pleased smile. “Oh, <em>you</em> can debrief me any time you want.”</p><p>Ianto felt a mingled sense of relief and mild guilt. “Quite” he said, his eyes following Jack’s glance to the bed, half-occluded as it was by equipment and boxes. He dragged his gaze resolutely away, and his mind back into the present. “Shall we do it over drinks? We are in a pub, after all...”</p><p>“Buy you a drink first, is what you’re saying?” said Jack, putting his gun away and standing back politely to allow Ianto access to the door. “I think I can manage that.”</p>
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<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“So...” said Jack, coming back from the bar with their drinks to the corner nook where this Ianto Jones was sitting in the otherwise empty pub, “I know you’ve got debriefing to do, Torchwood business to discuss, yadda yadda, but first...” he held up his hand, as Ianto paused and regarded him suspicion, midway through taking his first sip. Jack flashed him his best grin. “Very important question, Mister Jones.”</p><p>“Ianto, please” he said, but his suspicion didn’t seem to abate. Not that his expression grew much less inscrutable, either. Oh, Jack was going to have fun with this one, he thought. At least, he’d try his very best; if the mission really was off, then it wasn’t like he had anything better to do while he waited for his lift back to Cardiff in the morning.</p><p>“First name basis, already” commented Jack, twinkling at him. “Informal. Modern. Signifying intimate friendship, et cetera. Love that.”</p><p>“I’m sure” said Ianto, rather tightly. “Look, Captain Harkness, I really need to–”</p><p>“Oh, and you can call me Jack, of course. Only seems fair.”</p><p>“Indeed. Jack. Now, as I mentioned before, I really need to–”</p><p>“<em>Ah-ah</em>” said Jack, wagging a finger, “if I’m off the clock, then you are too. I said I had a question for you, didn’t I?”</p><p>“I suppose you did” said Ianto, with a stoic sigh. “Well?”</p><p>Jack grinned again, guileless and open, gesturing to Ianto’s hands wrapped around his drink, as though holding on for dear life. “No wedding ring, huh?”</p><p>“Well spotted.”</p><p>“Does that mean you’re single?”</p><p>Ianto rolled his eyes. “Getting right to it, are we.”</p><p>“Oh, your bosses at Torchwood One warned you about me, did they?” he said with a smirk.</p><p>“...You may have something of a reputation.”</p><p>Jack pouted, raising his eyebrows. “So… that’s not a no?”</p><p>Ianto gave a long-suffering sigh. “I am… otherwise spoken for, I’m afraid” he said. “Very sorry to disappoint.”</p><p>“A damn shame” said Jack. “Could your wife be persuaded–”</p><p>“I didn’t say married” interrupted Ianto. “I said spoken for.”</p><p>“Lover, then” said Jack, with a smirk. “Could she–”</p><p>“<em>He</em>, actually.” Ianto maintained eye contact.</p><p>Jack’s smile widened; out of necessity, he’d got used to using elaborate code when trying to talk men in this century into bed, but every now and then you found someone who knew what they wanted and went straight for it. Despite the very mixed signals he was getting here, Jack appreciated that, had never been one to beat around the bush himself. ...<em>So to speak</em>, he mentally added with a slight grin. “...Could he be persuaded to share? Or, hell, he could join in?”</p><p>For a moment Ianto’s eyes glazed over, a wide range of expressions flickering across his face; Jack felt rather vindicated, wondering exactly what sort of scenario Ianto was imagining that was making his lip curl and his eyes darken, just a very little. At least until Ianto’s face fell. “I don’t know if that would be a very good idea” he said at last, in a tone Jack couldn’t read.</p><p>Jack sighed regretfully. “Ah well. Worth a shot.” He took a sip of his drink, trying to read Ianto’s face once more; something about this man fascinated him, and – to Jack’s own slight surprise – that wasn’t much lessened now Ianto had made it clear that sex was probably off the table tonight. “Does he at least treat you right?” he asked.</p><p>Ianto looked back at him, inscrutable as ever. “Well, if you must know he can be a bit of a bastard now and again. Always taking me to the strangest of places and leaving me in impossible situations.”</p><p>“Men, eh? Can’t trust ‘em” said Jack with a grin and a wink. “But does he treat you <em>right</em>?” this time his leer left no plausible deniability about how Ianto was meant to interpret it.</p><p>If Jack thought that this buttoned-up young man would balk at this – and he was still testing the waters here, trying to figure him out – he was entirely wrong.</p><p>“Oh, well enough” said Ianto, maintaining his straight face but dropping his voice a very slight degree. “I like to think I give as good as I get, though.”</p><p>Something about his tone made Jack’s body heat under his clothes, his trousers feeling a fraction tighter. For the first time, he wondered what he’d got himself into. “Gotta admit, you’ve got me feeling a little jealous” said Jack, pouting slightly.</p><p>Ianto raised an eyebrow at this; he hesitated slightly, just enough that Jack might have missed it if he hadn’t been paying such close attention. “What about you? Is there… anyone?”</p><p>“Me? I’m not exactly what you’d call the committed relationship type” said Jack with a wry smile, and watched, puzzled, as Ianto’s expression shifted slightly. “But it’s not that there’s no one.” Ianto’s eyes focused a little, paying slightly closer attention. “There’s this man I’m waiting for. He’s coming back for me. And it’s gonna be a long wait, but one day… one day I’ll be back with him again. I know I will.”</p><p>“Oh?” said Ianto. “What sort of man?”</p><p>“He’s a doctor” said Jack, staring off into space, lost in thought. “Best doctor I ever met. Best man in the universe, and I’m gonna see him again.”</p><p>“How do you know?”</p><p>“A fortune teller told me.” Jack grinned.</p><p>Ianto snorted at this. “Famously a reliable source of information, fortune tellers.”</p><p>“Look, I just <em>know</em>” said Jack impatiently; something bothered him a little about Ianto’s expression, and the hint of sorrow in it. The last thing he wanted was pity. “He wouldn’t leave me alone forever; certainly not on purpose. I <em>know</em> him. One day, he’ll be back.”</p><p>He watched Ianto frown. “...He must mean a lot to you.”</p><p>“Oh, yeah” said Jack, his heart aching slightly as he thought about the Doctor; he tried not to dwell too much on the vast expanse of time before he’d see him again, but sometimes it was just <em>hard</em>.</p><p>Not that he felt it was entirely his own fault this time; there was something in Ianto’s manner, he realised, something that had loosened his tongue in… not quite the way he was hoping for. Something in the way he spoke and behaved made Jack want to trust him, to reveal things to him, and… <em>oh</em>. Jack realised why, all at once. It was because Ianto was acting, for all the world, as though <em>he</em> trusted <em>Jack</em>, wholly and implicitly. As though he actually cared about his well-being.</p><p>And as soon as he recognised that, Jack was on guard again; he’d learned better than to trust people who claimed to care. After all, he knew the playbook of a con man, inside and out, had used every trick himself. And this was the heart of it; if you could persuade the mark, genuinely and truly, that you had their best interests at heart, then you had them. Then there was the Torchwood connection, which made him even more wary. He almost laughed; yes, he probably had a reputation, which was probably noted in his Torchwood file. That had probably ended up on Ianto’s desk in London, and the man had probably been told to use it to his advantage if possible.</p><p>Yes, Jack thought; he should have seen it from the beginning. The fact that he hadn’t meant that Ianto was obviously very good at this, which meant he had to go even more carefully. He sighed inwardly, at last resigning himself to mentally crossing out the possibility of a simple night of no-strings sex or even just a pleasant conversation.</p><p>After all, Torchwood business wasn’t the kind of thing that was just dropped that easily.</p><p>Jack rallied himself, consciously drawing in and sitting up a little straighter as the silence stretched on between them, turning slightly awkward. “Well” he said. “I suppose the less said about that the better.”</p><p>“Perhaps, yes.”</p><p>“You wanted to talk about the intelligence I’d gathered…?”</p><p>“Yes” said Ianto, sounding rather relieved. “Please uh… summarise what you’ve been doing here, including accomplishments up to now, and your plans for tonight, before I arrived.”</p><p>Jack nodded, thinking quickly. While he was sure Ianto was hiding something, trying to win Jack’s trust and very probably angling to get something specific from him, Jack had no idea what that was yet. He wondered if he should lie; Emily might have set this as a test for him. But then, if he told the truth when he shouldn’t have… he shook himself slightly, hand reaching down into his pocket to clasp the little tin box he’d taken from the room upstairs, reassuring himself that he had other options if it all started to go wrong. Besides, at the very least, Ianto really did seem to bear all the hallmarks of a Torchwood agent; and he’d had Jack’s access code, which probably meant he had gone through Jack’s bosses in Cardiff in some capacity. What he might be looking for, though… well, that was a different question entirely. Jack didn’t really know enough about the machinations of Torchwood One to know either way.</p><p>All this passed through his mind in the second it took Ianto to take another sip of his drink and sit forward expectantly, arms neatly folded to listen to Jack. <em>Give him </em><em><span>what he wants then</span></em>, Jack decided. Give him the truth, try to find out more if only for his own piece of mind. He’d be able to argue that, he thought, if this really did go wrong. It wasn’t as though anyone in this town, or this mission, meant anything personally to Jack; he hadn’t even been involved with it until today, when Emily had summoned him to the depths of the Hub and packed him off to the countryside the same afternoon.</p><p>He ran his thumb over the groove around the box in his pocket and smiled brightly again at Ianto. “So” he said. “This guy Carrington. Alice and Emily have been working on this case for months. It started with weird Rift energy patterns throughout this whole area, centred on this valley. As they grew more intense, they started to see that the castle was the epicentre. So the two of them went to interview Carrington and the staff a few times, under false identities.”</p><p>“So that’s why they sent you, I suppose. Because he already knows their faces.”</p><p>Jack shrugged. “Guess so. I didn’t ask. I’m getting paid for it, so I’m not complaining.”</p><p>“I see” said Ianto. “And where are Alice and Emily now?”</p><p>Jack frowned. “Back in Cardiff, monitoring the Rift I guess?” he said. “Oh, and there’s this new recruit, Charles. They gotta train him up.”</p><p>“Charles Gaskell?” said Ianto, looking fascinated for a moment.</p><p>“Yeah, you know him?”</p><p>“I’ve… read about him. His work, I mean” he said. “In the archives. He was the one who first got Torchwood regularly using alien cryo-tech, yes?”</p><p>“...Not as far as I know? Like I said, he’s a new recruit, just started a few weeks back.”</p><p>“Oh, um” Ianto looked rather bothered by something. “I must be thinking of someone else.”</p><p>“We have alien cryo-tech?” said Jack, interested.</p><p>“It’s… currently in development” said Ianto quickly. “Now, back to your mission. Do you have the files I could look at, somewhere in all that stuff you brought?”</p><p>Jack smirked. “You tell me, you’ve already been in my–” he broke off, spotting someone approaching over Ianto’s shoulder, discretely quieting him with a raised finger. “Constable Roberts!” he said, fixing on his most charming smile again. “Everything alright?”</p><p>The constable had emerged from the stairs and was giving Jack and Ianto a deeply perplexed look, staring between the two of them. “Captain Harkness” he said. “I’d thought you’d gone up to the castle.”</p><p>“Nope” said Jack cheerily. “Change of plan. Was just discussing it with Mister Jones here.”</p><p>He narrowed his eyes. “I swore I saw the young lad drive Captain and Mrs Harkness off not half an hour ago–”</p><p>“Mrs Harkness?” Jack said, frowning, hissing in pain as Ianto dug his heel into his foot under the table.</p><p>“Like he said, change of plan! Sir Frederick is... indisposed” interrupted Ianto. “He sent a runner down the mountain with his most sincere apologies, and that the invitation to dinner will be postponed.”</p><p>The constable’s frown deepened to outright suspicion. “That so, is it?”</p><p>Jack kicked Ianto’s shin under the table, not hard enough to hurt, but, he hoped, hard enough to convey <em>shut up and let me do the talking</em>. “What he means is, we are just fine, thank you” he said firmly, letting a little hint of implicit threat slip into his voice. “Besides, I thought it was your night off? Not much policing to be done here tonight, I don’t expect.”</p><p>For a moment the constable squinted at him. Jack smiled pleasantly back, but held his gaze. From the corner of his eye, Jack thought he spotted Ianto’s eyes darting to and fro between the two of them, calculating, before Roberts sighed, drew back and nodded. “Right you are, Captain Harkness” he said, with an apologetic smile. “Just always on the lookout for trouble, that’s me. Military man like you ought to understand that though, eh?”</p><p>“Oh, I do” said Jack, with the most ingratiating smile he could muster.</p><p>“Right, well. Night then” said the constable, giving the bar another cursory glance; by this time the barmaid had come out from the kitchen again and was cleaning glasses that didn’t need it, doing a bad job of pretending not to listen. “Captain. Mister Jones” Roberts said, with a nod to them.</p><p>“Constable.”</p><p>And with that, the man turned and went back up the stairs.</p><p>Once he’d gone Jack let out his breath, gritting his teeth. “Damn” he said, taking a long drink and shuffling closer to Ianto, speaking under his breath. “I forgot about him.”</p><p>“The constable didn’t seem like much of a threat to me” said Ianto, frowning as he peered over at the door that led upstairs. “Off-duty country police officer. Bit nosy, not especially bright.”</p><p>“Maybe not, but he’s got a direct line up to the castle. All the local constabulary throughout this whole area are in Carrington’s pay” he said, raising his eyebrows as Ianto blinked at him. “Oh, you didn’t know that?”</p><p>“...Not as such, no.”</p><p>“Well, it’s true. Ah well, I don’t answer to Carrington anyway – thank God – so it won’t come back on me if he finds out like this that I skipped out on his dinner invitation.” He only hoped that Alice and Emily wouldn’t see it as a lapse. But then, he supposed, if the plan had changed anyway then perhaps it wouldn’t make a difference.</p><p>What did confuse him a little, though, was Ianto’s reaction. The more he thought about it, the more it didn’t make sense; if Ianto already knew about this case, and his part in it – perhaps more than he did – then he would have known about the constable. Suddenly, Jack felt himself stricken with suspicion once more, and turned to face Ianto with a frown.</p><p>And when he did he saw Ianto sitting up rigid on his seat, frozen as though in sudden horror. “Jack” he said, voice cracking a little. His manner had noticeably changed now. “I need you to tell me, very clearly. Do you think the constable is able to contact Carrington, without going up the mountain?”</p><p>“Are you kidding? The man has a full field telegraph kit set up in that end room, cutting edge stuff, paid for by Carrington himself” he grinned. “Oh yeah, you’re not the only one that’s been snooping through other people’s things. I did a little bit of lock-picking myself when I came in here earlier.” He saw the look on Ianto’s face. “Hey, relax!” he said. “I haven’t said anything really compromising in front of him.” He frowned, remembering something else. “And while we’re on the subject, who is Mrs Harkness? Last I checked, I’m not married. Like I said, not really a committed relationship kinda guy.”</p><p>“A fact you’ve made quite clear” said Ianto, rather tartly. He really did look harried now, as though he was doing everything he could to avoid jumping to his feet and running out the door. He ran his hand through his hair nervously; it stuck up a little, which was cute, Jack thought. Or would have been, if Ianto didn’t look quite so disturbed. “Oh God, I thought this would take longer to go tits up at least...”</p><p>“Hey! Hey” said Jack, taking a risk and laying his hand on Ianto’s forearm. Ianto allowed it for just a second, before twitching his arm away. “Are you gonna explain to me what’s going on? I might be able to help.”</p><p>That seemed to stop Ianto in his tracks, turning his head to stare intently at Jack. Once again, several expressions passed across his face; fear, annoyance, sadness, regret, and something like longing. But Ianto only laughed, slightly hysterically. “Oh, trust me, I <em>wish</em> it were that simple.” Before Jack could react, he got up, pushed his way out from behind the table and began to walk out of the pub. “I’m going out. I need to think, to clear my head.”</p><p>“Hey!” said Jack again, hastily getting up to follow. “You’re just gonna leave me hanging?”</p><p>Ianto turned to him at the door, giving him a frosty look even as the blast of cold air from the open pub door hit them, making Jack shiver slightly. “<em>Stay there</em>, you hear me?” said Ianto, commanding, pulling his arm away and beginning to walk out the door.</p><p>“Ooh, bossy” said Jack, waggling his eyebrows to try to defuse the tension. “I like a man who–”</p><p>“<em>Stop</em>. I… I can’t just now.”</p><p>Ianto turned away, but Jack followed him down the street into the alley, where it was almost completely dark save for the moon.</p><p>“I said–”</p><p>But at that moment Ianto broke off, as the very air in the alley seemed to tremble and tear, erupting into blazing gold light. A burning hole in space hanging in the air right in front of them, about the size of a dinner plate.</p><p>“<em>Get down!</em>” shouted Ianto, before Jack could react; even as he said the words he was shoving Jack down to the ground, falling heavily on top of him as the light faded above them. Jack’s hand flew up into the air reflexively to steady himself as Ianto knocked him off his feet, grazing the golden light; he felt a clean, sharp, excruciating pain in his hand as it made contact for just an instant, the breath knocked out of him at the same moment as Ianto fell on top of him on the hard ground, before the golden light was collapsing in on itself again. It crumpled to nothing, leaving them breathing hard and clinging together in the cold darkness of the alley floor.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Gwen had to resist the urge to gasp as Watkins brought them in through the small ceramic tiled atrium into a secondary, high-ceilinged entrance hall, an elegantly curved double stair leading to the upper floors of the house in front of them. The room was indeed beautiful, but it was hardly the architecture that drew the eye; every inch of the soaring walls was festooned with things, a chaotic mishmash of antique paintings in ornate gilt frames, classical marble sculptures mounted on brackets lining the stairways, weapons of every kind from every part of the world mounted on the walls for display, rows upon rows of the heads of many kinds of animal peering out with glassy taxidermied eyes; the walls were so covered, she could only barely see the green brocaded walls behind. As she craned upwards, she could see the skeleton of a whale, hanging from the vaulted ceiling on cables, amidst hanging machinery for lifting and winching and she didn’t know what else. Glass-fronted display cases stretched along the side walls, filled with beautiful scientific instruments of wood and brass, orreries and astrolabes and antique telescopes, and things Gwen couldn’t put names to. All of it was theatrically lit by golden spotlights, a brilliant light reflecting off a million shining points.</p><p>But the focal point of the whole display, she realised, was the painting at the apex of the staircase, where it divided into two curving flights. The painting was tall and rectangular, four figures grouped on a plush brocade divan. A tall man with pale red hair and an impressive mustache stood beside a woman who was sitting down, dressed in grey-blue silken finery and pearls, her dark blond hair pinned high on her head in an elaborate style. Though the man was standing while she sat, something about the composition drew the eye to her. Or perhaps it was just something in her expression; she was very beautiful, Gwen thought, but there was something stern and closed-off to her face as she stared back from canvas and paint. Gwen frowned slightly, inspecting the rest of the painting. Two children were beside the couple, dressed in light blue silk with red-gold hair and features that showed clearly matching their parents; the eldest, a girl, looked about six and was standing beside the arm of the chair. There was also a boy, was sitting beside his mother on the cushioned upholstery, a few years younger than his sister. Gwen stepped forward a little, enough to read the plate below it.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> <b>Sir Frederick James Adam Carrington and his wife Charlotte Georgina, and their children Ada Caroline and Maxwell Frederick Carrington. 1891.</b> </em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Two years before they died” muttered Gwen, stepping back to stand beside Jack. It was then that she noticed the way he was staring at the painting, a small frown on his brow. She tugged his sleeve gently. “Jack?” she said, under her breath. “What is it?”</p><p>“...Nothing” he muttered back, still frowning as he walked with her. “I just thought I recognised her…”</p><p>“Charlotte?”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“You met Charlotte Carrington when she was alive?” said Gwen.</p><p>Jack hesitated, brow furrowing even more before he sighed. “...No, I don’t think I did. I think it was just… someone who looked a bit like her.” He chuckled apologetically, shaking his head. “When you’re my age you meet a lot of people… they kinda blur together a bit.” He frowned. “But hey, does something strike you as weird about this place?”</p><p>“Um, mostly everything?”</p><p>Jack gestured up into the vault. “Electric lights” he said. “It’s very early for electric lights. Especially this many of them.”</p><p>“The wonders of the modern age” came a voice from the stairs, making both of them start a little from where they’d been craning up at the ceiling. A man was walking down the stairs; Gwen immediately recognised him from the painting, dressed in a different but equally fancy brocaded waistcoat. “I wasn’t the first, unfortunately, to tame the power of a torrent with hydraulics and bring electric light into the home to serve at my pleasure; that honour was taken by good old Armstrong up in the north, of course. But I would humbly suggest that my system of generation of electric power much improves upon the one at Cragside. And besides, here we are fully outfitted with the best incandescent bulbs Mister Edison has to offer across the Atlantic. Supplied with power, of course, by our local Welsh waterfall. I told Edison of it recently, you know, when I visited his home; wonderful people, the Americans. Very industrious, I admire them terribly. So you can imagine my excitement to meet the storied American captain his wife. I think we’re going to get on wonderfully.” He had come to the bottom of the stairs now, and stood in front of them. He looked noticeably older and more worn, the lines drawn a little deeper on his face and a little grey beginning to touch his gingery hair and handlebar mustache. But he was smiling amiably enough, clasping his hands before him. “Apologies for my lateness. I was reading and attending to a most urgent telegram. But it’s of no matter, all is resolved now.” He reached forward to shake Jack’s hand firmly. “Captain Harkness. You’ve no idea how much I’ve heard tell of you; as you know I’ve been trying to wrest some of your time from your employers for a good while now.”</p><p>“Well, you’ve got me at last” said Jack, giving him a perfectly charming smile. “It’s a pleasure, Sir Frederick. Your reputation precedes you.”</p><p>This seemed to amuse him greatly. “You’re a fine one to talk, Captain! Still, I hope it does well enough, when it precedes me.” He nodded, inclining his head graciously before turning to Gwen. “And Mrs Harkness! I must say it’s an unexpected pleasure.”<br/>“Likewise” said Gwen, curtsying as the man bowed in front of her.</p><p>“I’m looking forward to becoming better acquainted over dinner” said Carrington. “I could not help but take note of you observing my collection; my wife’s work, mostly, but the scientific instruments are both of our doing. My dear Charlotte had an eye for the technical details of such things.” Something in his face went hard for a moment, before relaxing again. “There, now, where are my manners?” he said, looking between them, his smile back on his face. “Shall we?”</p><hr/><p>As the golden flare faded above them, Ianto and Jack rolled to the side, over and over until the eventually collided with the alley wall and came to a halt. Ianto found himself gasping as Jack’s full weight ended up on top of him, pressing his back down into the cold ground.</p><p>For a moment he had a flash of memory, a different day, a different cold floor, rolling over concrete with Jack falling hard onto him, and their faces so close. And they were close now too, nose to nose with their cloudy breath mingling in the cold air, the light of the moon catching the blue in Jack’s eyes and picking out his familiar features as he stared down at Ianto with lips parted in surprise. And it was only a matter of a few centimetres between them, Ianto foud himself thinking. <em>It</em><em> would be so easy to just raise his head and</em>–</p><p>To Ianto’s surprise, it was Jack who tore his gaze away first, rolling off him and springing to his feet as though he’d got an electric shock. Before Ianto had even pulled himself up off the alley floor, Jack was already rooting through the inner pocket of his coat, pulling out an antiquated-looking energy scanner – of the kind Ianto recognised a moment later from the deprecated equipment section of the archives – and brandishing it like a weapon, making a wide circle in the alley.</p><p>The scanner beeped tinnily, the brass pointer spinning and shuddering like a dropped compass needle as numbers scrolled on the analogue dials so fast they blurred. Ianto was just reaching for his own scanner when he heard Jack yelp in surprise and pain and drop the scanner in the alleyway, cradling his other hand suddenly, flinching at what he saw; Ianto’s eyes widened as he caught the dark glint of what could only be blood in the moonlight.</p><p>Hurriedly, Ianto pulled out the torch his own Jack had given him, holding it up so the beam fell on Jack’s hand.</p><p>Ianto’s eyes widened in horror as he saw it. “Your… your fingers...”</p><p>Jack’s face contorted with pain, trying to shove his arm behind his back. “It’s nothing. Just a scratch.”</p><p>But Ianto was too quick for him. Before Jack could flinch away he’d grabbed his hand and gasped in horror and sympathetic pain at what he saw. He stared back at him, eyes wide. “A scratch, Jack? Really?” Indeed, Jack’s fingers of his right hand had been sliced in a sharp, diagonal line; his little finger was missing entirely, his ring finger to the second knuckle and his middle finger to the first. His index finger was just missing the very tip. After a moment of staring Ianto managed to get a hold of himself. “It cut your fingers clean off!”</p><p>“It just clipped me. It’s nothing!”</p><p>Ianto swallowed, trying to remind himself of the things he’d seen Jack heal from, and the position they were in now. “At least let me wrap it for you...”</p><p>“Leave it alone!” he barked, trying to wrench his hand back, but Ianto kept his grip. Despite this, Jack was doing his best to ignore both his mutilated hand and Ianto, eyes still darting around the alley to where the light had been a moment ago. “What the hell was that?!?”</p><p>“I’ve got a fairly good guess” said Ianto grimly. “Just… calm down, okay? We can sort this out, just… <em>please</em>, Jack.”</p><p>Jack gave up trying to wrest his hand from Ianto’s grip in favour of staring at him guardedly, still breathing fast and hard, hissing with the pain. As they both watched, Ianto’s eyes fixed on Jack’s hand, as Jack’s fingers began to regrow. Jack’s face twisted as they did, and not for the first time, Ianto wondered how it felt; surely it couldn’t be a pleasant sensation. Not that he had long to wonder; as soon as the fingers were back, Jack seemed to regain enough of his composure to try to wrench his wrist out of Ianto’s grasp. This time, Ianto let him. Jack’s hand went for his pocket again, back hunching over his hand to try to cover the blood, that Ianto realised was now staining Jack’s clothes and his own – his wounded hand must have been trapped between them when they fell and rolled, he realised guiltily – Jack’s other hand going to the ubiquitous wrist strap he wore as though for comfort and reassurance.</p><p>That gave Ianto an idea, though; he reached out to Jack again, trying to see his wrist. But once again Jack pulled his arm away, baring his teeth in what Ianto could only call a snarl. Ianto drew back, raising his empty palms where Jack could see them, a little disturbed. “Calm down, it’s okay. I already know you can heal, and I don’t want to take anything from you, I just wanted to ask for a space-time coordinate reading” he said, “I wasn’t trying to–”</p><p>But before he could get any further, Jack had taken him by surprise, lunging forward to grab Ianto’s wrist and twist it up behind his back, pressing him forward against the wall in an arm lock that made him gasp in pain. The cold stone wall pressed to his cheek, he felt Jack press close behind him, leaning his weight against Ianto’s back and pulling his shoulder joint further. “Oh, you know I can heal, huh? You want a space-time coordinate reading? What else do you know about me?” he growled in Ianto’s ear. “Did Torchwood really send you?” he shook him, jostling the arm lock and making Ianto hiss with pain. “Did they?”</p><p>“Yes!” hissed Ianto. “For God’s sake, Jack, <em>yes</em>... well, kind of–”</p><p>“What more do Torchwood want from me?!” hissed Jack, more to himself than to Ianto. “I’m already out here, aren’t I…?”</p><p>“Just let me exp– <em>ah! </em><em>Fuck!</em>” he gasped, as Jack pulled harder on his arm. The enticing smell of him ached in its familiarity, the warm press of his body making anticipation and longing mingle nauseatingly with the fear and pain. Jack was pressing too hard on the shoulder that Ianto had dislocated all those months ago when the building fell, that still sometimes gave him a faint muscle ache when it was cold, had never been quite right again; his own Jack sometimes massaged the stiffness out of it for him after a long day of chasing weevils, or doing heavy lifting in the Hub, pressing his thumbs into the muscle just so to gentle away the pain. This Jack seemed agitated enough to wrench his arm right back out of its socket.</p><p>“Jack!” Ianto gritted out. “I <em>swear</em> I don’t mean you any harm. We can sort this out, just… let me go.” He turned his head as far as it would go against the rough, cold stone wall, catching Jack’s eye from the corner of his. “Please?”</p><p>He didn’t have much hope of it working. But after meeting his eye for a long, drawn-out moment, to his very great surprise Jack relented and drew back, letting him go.</p><p>Ianto sighed with relief, turning around and massaging his shoulder, giving Jack a somewhat reproachful look. “<em>Thank</em> you.”</p><p>“How do you know about...” Jack raised his hand, gesturing with the fingers he’d just regrown, blood all the way down his arm. “Me…?” he finished, slightly awkwardly.</p><p>Ianto sighed. “I told you” he said, schooling his voice into something as gentle as he could. “I did my research.”</p><p>Jack wavered. “What did they send you here to do to me?”<br/><br/>“Nothing!” soothed Ianto. “Nothing but relieve you of your mission. I promise. Now… don’t be alarmed, but I need you to check the time.” He nodded to Jack’s vortex manipulator. “We’re clearly in the same physical location, but that thing gives absolute temporal coordinates too… yes?”</p><p>Jack nodded, looking deeply suspicious but flipping open the cover on his wrist strap. “It’s December twelfth, eighteen ninety-nine, nine seventeen PM. Happy?”</p><p>Ianto breathed out in relief. “Yes. Same time and place… it must’ve just missed us.” He winced. “Except your poor fingers, I suppose… sorry about that, by the way.”</p><p>“What missed us?” demanded Jack, distractedly stuffing his hand into his coat pocket and glancing around. “What the hell was that?”</p><p>“Some sort of Rift disturbance” said Ianto. “A micro-portal opened and closed. Unfortunately your fingers were a bit in the way.” He narrowed his eyes, glancing around. “Oh, that’s fun. I wasn’t expecting to have to worry about chopped off body parts, but I suppose it’s all in a day’s work.”</p><p>“Oh, yeah” said Jack, leaning down to pick up his dropped scanner again, passing Ianto the torch he’d dropped at the same time. “They told me to take readings, some sort of weird energy field. Rift disturbances, that were sort of...” Jack made a motion with his hand.</p><p>“...Popcorny” supplied Ianto.</p><p>“That’s one way to describe it” said Jack, giving him an odd look. He gestured at the empty air where the golden glow had been. “Is this what’s causing it?”</p><p>“I think so, yes” said Ianto. “It’s the second one like it I’ve seen today… actually, maybe the third?” he said, thinking of the bright flare he’d seen from the window of Jack’s room. “...It’s unclear. Anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of small flares could cause a residual background energy field like that...” he held up his own scanner, watching Jack’s eyebrow raise slightly at the digital display; he only hoped Jack wouldn’t question the idea of Torchwood One having more futuristic tech. A moment later he put it from his mind. “This was a small puncture, smaller than the other one” he said, beginning to pace. It had been no more than the size of a dinner plate, whereas the glow that had brought them here had filled the whole tunnel, before. “But it means there could be others.”</p><p>Jack looked this way and that with narrowed eyes. “But what’s actually causing it?”</p><p>“Don’t know” said Ianto, putting his scanner away. He leaned down to the alley floor, clicking on the torch and sweeping its beam over the ground. He didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, only the packed dirt yard, strewn with straw from the stables. With a slight shudder he noted the absence of any sign of Jack’s severed fingers. “But I am here to try to find out.” He narrowed his eyes. “...Aren’t you?”</p><p>Jack shrugged. “Not as such, no. I was just told to go to the castle and have dinner with Sir Frederick Carrington. Take energy readings if I could, but that was it, basically.”</p><p>Ianto frowned. “Okay” he said. “Well, um. You mentioned that the castle was the epicentre of the residual field, so...”</p><p>“So whatever’s causing this, is likely to be there.”</p><p>“That would be my guess.”</p><p>Jack’s eyes narrowed. “You wanted spatio-temporal coordinates. You wanted to know if we’d time traveled.”</p><p>“Ah, yeah” said Ianto, feeling momentarily nervous; he hoped he hadn’t unwittingly outed himself as a time traveler. “You know how the Rift works...”</p><p>“Yeah I do” said Jack, starting to smile in a way that immediately caused Ianto to worry. “So, in summary… you think there’s something up there in the castle, that can cause people to time travel through small Rift openings.”</p><p>“I… I didn’t necessarily say that!” cautioned Ianto, not liking the light in Jack’s eyes.</p><p>“Ah, but you implied it” said Jack, a big grin spreading across his face. “And from where I’m standing, it seems like it’s at least worth a look.”</p><p>Dread hit Ianto, as he realised what Jack intended. “No. Oh no. Jack, please listen to me... I know exactly what you’re thinking right now and you <em>can’t</em>...”</p><p>He began to edge away from Ianto. “If you’ll excuse me. You said the mission was off, but regardless, I think I have somewhere to be.”</p><p>Ianto’s eyes widened. “Jack, no...” he reached out for Jack’s sleeve, but Jack neatly side-stepped his grip. Ianto stepped in front of him, standing in his path to try and physically block his way out of the alley. He expected Jack to push him aside or dodge again, or stop. And for a moment, he did stop, leaving them facing off for an instant, eye to eye.</p><p>Ianto knew he should have seen it coming in that moment. And perhaps some part of him did, he thought later. Perhaps some part of him anticipated the way Jack just kept on forward, calling Ianto’s bluff and getting up close to him, waiting for him to move aside. But before it could become a conscious thought, Jack was closing the distance between them, pulling Ianto into a hard kiss.</p><p>Ianto kissed him back hungrily for half an instant, out of pure relieved muscle memory, or perhaps something like instinct. It was just beginning to turn desperate and heated and <em>filthy</em>, before Ianto reluctantly came to his senses and shoved Jack off him. His face was hot with shame and his trousers embarrassingly tight as he glared at Jack, who – <em>the bastard</em>, Ianto thought – was grinning in amusement, tinged with excitement and triumph. Ianto thought it was actually worse, that neither of those were directed at <em>him</em>; he hadn’t expected that, but here they were.</p><p>“Ianto Jones, it has been an unexpected pleasure” said Jack, taking the opportunity of Ianto’s flustered state to push him aside, giving him a gentle pat on the backside and a wink. “But I’m afraid I can’t stay the night.”</p><p>And with that he left Ianto there in the alley, darting off around the corner.</p><p>Taking a moment to pull himself together – and resisting the urge to scream in frustration – Ianto decided in a split second there was only one thing to be done. Perhaps, he thought with slight resentment, there was only one thing he’d ever be able to do again. But still, it wasn’t like he had much of a choice in the matter.</p><p>With a sigh, he turned the corner and plunged into the shadows, following Jack into the night.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ianto peered around the corner, catching sight of Jack as he got his breath back, clouds gusting out in the moonlit chill of the night air as he leaned back for a moment against the side of the stables. He could see Jack walking towards the river bank, towards the tunnel through which he, his own Jack, and Gwen had come when they’d first arrived in this time. He sighed, slipping out of the shadow of the wall and jogging after Jack, the grass crunching a little under his boots with the start of a fine layer of frost.</p><p>Of course, Ianto thought; this Jack had been exploring the village earlier, and must have found the tunnel himself then. He shuddered slightly, at how narrowly they might have missed Jack crossing his own timeline.</p><p>Still, he reminded himself, that was exactly what he was trying to prevent now.</p><p>He had all but caught up with Jack by the time he reached the small cluster of trees that hid the doorway to the tunnel. Though Ianto took care to keep back out of sight, before he knew it Jack was turning around to him, slamming him back up against the narrow trunk of a leafless rowan and getting up close to his face with a glare.</p><p>“Why are you still following me?” snarled Jack, shoving him backwards against the tree with a forceful hand to his sternum. The other hand was deep in his coat pocket, grasping something tightly. Jack gritted his teeth. “I could’ve knocked you out before, or killed you. Maybe I <em>should</em> have.”</p><p>“But you didn’t,” he said, refusing to be intimidated. He didn’t <em>think</em> Jack would follow through on any of his threats, but then again, this wasn’t <em>his</em> Jack. Above all, he couldn’t let himself be caught off guard again; he couldn’t lose his composure around this Jack, he’d resolved on the way over.</p><p>“The night’s still young,” grumbled Jack darkly, but as Ianto had suspected, there was little real heat in it; more frustration and impatience, as though Ianto was little more than an annoyance to him.</p><p>Somehow, that felt worse.</p><p>Ianto glared back at him, pointedly taking Jack’s hand by the wrist and shifting it off him. “I can’t let you go up to the castle.”</p><p>“Oh?” said Jack, raising an eyebrow, a mocking smirk playing around his lips as he pulled his hand out of Ianto’s grip. “Because if you really are from Torchwood One, and I’m relieved of duty for tonight as you say, seems to me like it’s none of your business where I go or what I do.”</p><p>“Torchwood has a currently ongoing investigation in that castle,” said Ianto, with as much patience as he could. “The reason you’re off this case is that you can’t be allowed to mess it up. So yes, it is my business actually.”</p><p>“I’m good at getting in places unnoticed,” said Jack, pushing past him and making strides towards the tunnel entrance.</p><p>Ianto noticed that where before, the tunnel had been dark, now there were strings of filament electrical bulbs illuminating the inside in inviting golden warmth. Something about this felt very much like walking into a trap. He frowned. “Jack...”</p><p>“I promise I’ll try not to step on your investigation’s toes,” Jack continued, walking past him and starting down the steps to the tunnel proper. “But this… this goes beyond my involvement in Torchwood. This is time travel, and it <em>matters</em>.”</p><p>Ianto had caught up with him now, neatly positioning himself in front of Jack, right at the bottom of the stairs. “Listen, Jack. There’s a very good reason why you can’t go up there.”</p><p>“Oh?” said Jack, trying to edge past him. “What is it?”</p><p>Ianto breathed out, taking hold of Jack’s wrist; it was the one with the vortex manipulator, which Ianto suspected was the reason Jack wrenched it back from him almost immediately, and carried on walking up the tunnel. “I can’t tell you that,” Ianto said, jogging to narrow Jack’s head start on him once more. Strictly speaking, he thought, he <em>could</em> probably tell Jack that his future self was up in the castle; former Time Agent that he was, a warning about crossing his own timeline might work better than anything else to convince him to leave well alone. But Ianto felt suddenly reluctant to tell Jack that, unless there was no other option; it would only lead to questions about how exactly Ianto knew so much, and how he knew Jack in general. And that was getting into territory he’d much rather avoid, for his own sanity as much as for the integrity of space-time which might be threatened by Jack knowing his own future.</p><p>Perhaps it was selfish, but Ianto felt much more comfortable and in control of this situation in his guise as Ianto Jones, Torchwood One overseer sent to keep Jack in line, than as Ianto Jones, Torchwood agent a century out of his time, desperate and improvising and more in love with Jack than he knew what to do with.</p><p>Once again, Jack pushed past him though as Ianto got in front of him, taking the scanner out of one of his coat pockets again and holding it up as he walked. “Sorry,” he said. “Rift energy field’s getting stronger this way, as I thought. Like you said, that portal came from somewhere. I need to at least check out the source of it, and if you really know so much about me, I’m guessing you know exactly why.”</p><p>Ianto sighed, feeling a slight, weary sense of déja vu; it didn’t feel dissimilar to when he was following Jack around, trying to get himself recruited to Torchwood Three in the first place. Except somehow this was even more frustrating, with the fact that he’d already been through this, already won Jack’s trust. Maybe even his love, he thought, before shoving that thought firmly away. “Jack...” he said, running up and ahead of Jack again, putting himself in his way. “Listen, there are <em>good reasons</em> why–”</p><p>“Good reasons, huh?” barked Jack. “Good reasons you can’t <em>possibly</em> explain?” He seemed thoroughly annoyed now, eyes darkening, and suddenly Ianto felt a stab of fear again; they were in a tunnel underground, and no one knew where he was, because he wasn’t even supposed to be here at all, and….</p><p>“Yes,” said Ianto patiently. “Good reasons I can’t explain.” He gave Jack an imploring look. “I’m asking you to trust me. <em>Please</em>, Jack.”</p><p>Jack laughed, bitter a little desperate. “Trust you? Now why the hell should I do that? You’re Torchwood, so forgive me if I find it a little bit hard to believe you’ve got my best interests at heart.”</p><p>“Look,” sighed Ianto. “I know, you want to see the Doctor again, and you’re looking for anything, the slightest possibility that might bring you closer. You miss him. I <em>know</em> that, Jack. But you can’t just–”</p><p>That was it; that was all it took for Jack to lose his patience and round on Ianto.</p><p>“Oh, you <em>know</em>, do you? You know all about me? Well, then I suppose you know what it feels like?!?” snapped Jack. “Do you know what it’s like, being stuck here, in this time? The man I love is not coming back for me until the twenty-first century! Do you have any concept of how it feels, knowing I just have to sit tight and <em>wait?</em>”</p><p>“<em>Yes!!</em>” burst out Ianto, unable to maintain his composure any longer. “Yes, surprisingly enough I do know a little bit about time travel, Jack. Especially the unintentional sort!” He gritted his teeth, glaring at Jack even as he felt tears prickle in his eyes. “And some of us don’t have unlimited years to wait for someone to come and rescue us. Some of us have to keep the world safe ourselves.”</p><p>Jack had opened his mouth for a sharp retort but it seemed to die on his lips, as he stared back in shock at Ianto’s outburst. “You’re a time-traveler” he said softly.</p><p>“<em>And</em> the penny drops,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Took you long enough.”</p><p>“Going by your speech and mannerisms I’d say… late twentieth century? First half of the twenty-first?”</p><p>“Good guess.” He hugged his elbows, avoiding Jack’s gaze, feeling very cold inside; this wasn’t supposed to be how this went, but here he was.</p><p>“Ianto...”</p><p>“Stop.” He turned away, not wanting Jack to see the tears in his eyes. “Do not ask if I know you in the future. I can’t do that, Jack. I can’t.”</p><p>“...I wasn’t actually going to, but now I’m kinda intrigued.”</p><p>Ianto groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. He was making this worse and worse. “Okay, yes,” he said, turning back to face Jack. “Yes, I... have had... <em>dealings</em> with a future version of you. No, I don’t really want to talk about it. …Timelines, you know.”</p><p>“Fair enough,” said Jack, backing off. He hesitated for a moment, mouth open as though to ask something.</p><p>“What?” snapped Ianto.</p><p>“Nothing! Nothing.”</p><p>He rolled his eyes. “No, tell me.”</p><p>“...Okay” said Jack. “Just… will you answer me one thing about the future? Just one.”</p><p>Ianto’s eyes narrowed. “Depends on the thing.”</p><p>Jack licked his lips, looking almost nervous. “Does he come? I was told it would be the twenty-first century. Has he come for me yet, in your time?”</p><p>Ianto stared at him, at the desperate longing in Jack’s eyes. “Yes.”</p><p>Jack breathed out, a small, painfully soft smile of relief breaking across his face. “When? I mean, I know you can’t tell me, but say, first quarter, or more the middle of the twenty-first century? Could you narrow it down to a decade, or–”</p><p>“Jack. I can’t,” Ianto interrupted. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t. Please don’t ask me to.”</p><p>“But–”</p><p>“<em>Please!</em>”</p><p>“...Okay,” said Jack, frowning. He was scrutinising Ianto now, and Ianto got the impression – for the first time tonight – that he was really <em>looking</em> at him, seeing him properly. “Well, then. What about you?”</p><p>“What <em>about</em> me?”</p><p>“Are you really a Torchwood agent?”</p><p>“Yes,” said Ianto, firmly. At least that part he could say with confidence.</p><p>Jack narrowed his eyes at him. “Then why do you care so much? About me, I mean.”</p><p>And there it was. Ianto swallowed dryly, looking back at Jack and wondering what on earth to tell him.</p><p>When suddenly he heard a sound, off at the end of the tunnel they’d come in. He looked up, just in time to see the door at the end of the tunnel slam shut. From the angle, he couldn’t see much more than the lower foot of the door, at the top of the stairs leading up to ground level.</p><p>But he could see that there was someone there, their feet just visible along with the hem of a coat, swishing as they started down the stairs. The light of a swinging lantern, that they couldn’t see except for the illumination it cast down the stairs.</p><p>Ianto’s eyes widened. “Jack.” He gestured with his head. “Someone’s there.”</p><p>Before Ianto could answer, there came a voice; a man’s voice, he thought, unfamiliar to him and echoing oddly in the tunnel. “Mister Jones? Mister Ianto Jones?”</p><p>Jack’s eyes darted. “Friend of yours?”</p><p>Ianto shook his head firmly, thinking of Jack and Gwen up at the castle. They were the only people he really trusted. “Definitely not, and they’ve trapped us in here now.” He thought for a second. “There’s a blast door a bit up ahead.”</p><p>Jack’s mouth curved into a smile. “So what I’m getting is… run?”</p><p>“<em>Run</em>,” confirmed Ianto, grabbing Jack’s sleeve and pulling him along with him.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Chapter 13</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>On the way to the dining room Gwen had listened quietly, letting Jack do most of the talking as Carrington led them past arrays of glass cabinets, filled as the ones downstairs had been with all manner of collectors’ items. She supposed it was alright to let Jack do most of the talking here; he had experience of this time period, but by contrast Gwen felt rather at sea. She didn’t want to accidentally say anything that might give them away.</p><p>Not that she thought Carrington likely to guess at anything; he gave off the impression of intelligence, yes, but of the distracted, self-absorbed sort. He seemed like he’d never left the confines of his own world or the company of his collection in a long while.</p><p>But what a collection it was. Gwen couldn’t help but marvel just a little, as he led the two of them down a corridor past a case filled with fish skeletons, delicate bones suspended on minute wire armetures to give the appearance of swimming in a vast shoal, all different species together but neatly labeled on a small printed plate to the side. The next cabinet along bore an array of what looked like medieval weaponry, the next a rack of geological samples, but they moved past too quickly for her to get a proper look. It was an odd experience; on the level of each case, there was precision and order. But there seemed to be no order to the whole, the entire expansive world bundled into glass cabinets and frozen there, immobile. It was like being in an old-fashioned museum with the most eccentric curator one could imagine.</p><p>Maybe that was just what rich people did with their money in this era, she thought. An already-rich Englishman who got even richer on Welsh coal in his thirties, then spent his remaining time in his own private castle, collecting the finest things from all around the British Empire.</p><p>She frowned, trying to force herself to concentrate on her surroundings rather than getting annoyed. As they went, she was trying to look around and take in details, to memorise the way the hallways connected and the things she saw along the way, just in case they needed to run, or hide. Ianto would be better at this, she thought; indeed, he might well be fascinated by this place, with its strange chaotic order. She felt a pang at that, thinking of Ianto down below in the village, waiting for them. At least he’d hopefully be safer than they were. And he probably was, but still. She knew she’d feel better once they were back with him.</p><p>Actually, she knew she wouldn’t feel right until she was back in her own time, back with Rhys. But one thing at a time, and worrying about Ianto’s immediate safety felt easier to deal with now. More concrete, less all-consuming and hopeless.</p><p>She forced herself to focus on Jack, listening and nodding politely as Carrington talked happily and animatedly about everything they’d seen, how and where he’d purchased it.</p><p>At last they arrived on an upstairs landing, Carrington halted them, pointing to a roped-off area, this time free of glass cases; only a low dais, filled with instruments. Gwen couldn’t help but be impressed at the sight of its contents that gleamed in the light of the large electric bulbs.</p><p>As before there were scientific instruments of every kind, polished brass and delicate, intricate dials and switches. But these were more elaborate, newer than the ones in downstairs, which had all seemed rather like antiques. There were huge, rectangular coils that looked like they belonged on some of the machinery in the Hub, the bits she didn’t understand. There were drums of paper that recorded vibrations and fluctuations, some complicated piece of kit that looked like it attached to a telescope, magnets and wires. There was a set of precise and beautiful nested lenses of the clearest glass, beside a perfectly spherical metallic globe, connected to a thick wired column below. A little off to one side there a beautifully crafted wooden frame with brassy, interlocking gears and cylinders inscribed with numbers in copperplate script.</p><p>“The overspill from my laboratory, on display,” said Carrington. “My late wife and I made it our business to replicate every piece of equipment used in the great physical discoveries of the great men of our time… Watt, Faraday, a set of Monsieur Fresnel’s lenses over there as you see, Maxwell’s apparatus of course, and Mister Babbage’s difference engine is over there...” he pointed at the frame.</p><p>“Wow,” breathed Jack. “So, what, you were recreating other scientists’ work?”</p><p>“In an amateur fashion of course… but did not the great artists of the Renaissance learn by copying the works of masters? But we did much of our own work too, down below in the laboratory,” said Carrington, with a smile. “My dear Charlotte found it… a diverting pastime. London society rather tried to stifle such things out of her, I fear. There are many who would say that a lady shouldn’t concern herself with such things. But I <em>always</em> allowed her the freedom to pursue them.” Gwen thought she saw something flash across his face for a moment, before it disappeared, and he was smiling again. “But come; we’re already late to dine, and the works of technology may wait.” As though at his words, the double doors in front of them were opened by two servants, revealing a fine dining room. “Let us talk as we eat.”</p><hr/><p>And so Gwen found herself seated across from Jack at the table, as servants brought in the main course. The earlier part of the meal had mostly been filled with the two men talking about the current affairs of the day and Gwen listening – some of what they were speaking about was familiar to her, but it had really been too long since she’d studied enough history to confidently participate.</p><p>“So, Mrs Harkness. You’ve been very quiet,” said Carrington at last, turning to face her. It took her a moment to remember he was addressing her and react to it, as Jack pointedly kicked her ankle under the table, mouthing <em>that’s you!</em> at her while Carrington’s back was turned.</p><p>“Um, yes, sorry,” said Gwen. Giving Jack a gentle kick right back with the toe of her boot, she smiled graciously. “The food is wonderful. Send my compliments down to the kitchens.”</p><p>“Consider it done,” he assured her. “But I confess, in all the tales I’d heard of the Captain from our mutual acquaintance, I had not been informed that he was married. Or, indeed, that he’d be bringing anyone with him at all. So, your company is a very pleasant surprise.”</p><p>She had to bite back the impulse to ask outright about this mutual acquaintance; he’d probably be expecting her to know who he was talking about already. “Well, when it comes to our personal lives, my husband is a very private man. Positively restrained,” she said, trying not to chuckle.</p><p>“Now, I don’t know about that,” said Jack, meeting her eye. “Private? Maybe. Restrained? Never. ...With some possible exceptions.”</p><p>Despite herself, Gwen nearly snorted. “True, but let’s not bring that up at dinner, <em>darling</em>,” she said. Actually, she was glad Ianto wasn’t here; he’d probably only encourage him.</p><p>“Aw,” said Jack, eyes flashing with amusement at her. “You’re no fun.”</p><p>“I’m plenty of fun, thank you,” said Gwen primly. “When I want to be.”</p><p>“Don’t listen to her,” said Jack, to their host, smiling charmingly. A little too charmingly, she thought, and gave Jack a Ianto-inspired <em>dial-it-back</em> eyebrow raise, which he ignored. “I remember a time when her brother and I were in close conversation in the conservatory, and she–”</p><p>“And <em>she</em> says, this is not a story for dinner time,” said Gwen firmly.</p><p>“You mention your wife’s brother,” said Carrington, looking between them. “Are you close?”</p><p>“Um. No,” said Gwen hastily.</p><p>“Very. Old soldiers, you know,” said Jack at the exact same moment, unable to restrain a slight leer.</p><p>“More like colleagues.” She favoured him with another kick under the table, harder this time. The boots she had borrowed were actually rather good for it, she was finding.</p><p>“Okay, let’s go with that,” said Jack, chastened.</p><p>Carrington was still looking at them with that mild but inscrutable expression. “Out of interest, did he – or indeed, anyone else – accompany you to the village today, by chance?”</p><p>“No, we’re here alone,” said Gwen, suddenly feeling a little flicker of nervousness for Ianto’s sake. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jack sober a little too; something in Carrington’s tone was making him wary, but he was trying not to show it.</p><p>Carrington stared between the two of them with narrowed eyes, his mouth quirking up just a little at the corner. “Well, that’s a relief,” he said after a moment, clapping his hands together. “I would have extended the invitation to any companions of yours, naturally… wouldn’t want anyone left out in the cold, after all.”</p><p>Jack smiled at him guilelessly. “I’m sorry I didn’t let you know in advance about my wife,” he said. “But I just couldn’t leave my dear Gwen at home; not for an exciting trip like this!”</p><p>“Well, I am of course enchanted by your presence, Mrs Harkness,” he said, laying down his fork and taking a sip of wine. “You two clearly are inseparable. And is it not the greatest gift, for those we love to stay forever at our sides?”</p><p>Gwen swallowed, seeing a note of pain cross his face, very briefly.</p><p>“...Yet such is the nature of the world,” he continued, a mere moment later; his eyes had gone distant, his head swiveling around to stare back at Jack. “Time passes, things end. It is an inescapable truth of the universe. So the study of heat and matter says. Endings are written into the very laws of physics.”</p><p>“True,” said Jack, inclining his head. “But it seems to me that if you keep worrying about what happens at the end, you miss all the good parts on the way.”</p><p>Gwen blinked at this; going by certain conversations she’d had with Ianto, she wouldn’t have thought Jack would think of things in such a way, much less say them so earnestly. Then again, maybe he was just acting. Or just being a hypocrite.</p><p>“Well,” said Carrington. “That is a fine way to look at the world. I suppose once one has been a soldier of such illustrious reputation,” - and once again, Gwen wondered where this man had his information about Jack from, and how much he knew that was actually true - “and seen death, in all its reality, one must think differently about such things than might a mere man of industry and science such as myself.”</p><p>“Yes, that’s true,” said Jack, who she imagined was having a similar internal debate with himself. Not that she’d have been able to tell if she hadn’t known him so well. “...You seem to have thought a lot about this.”</p><p>“Well, now that Charlotte and the children are departed, physics is my truest love.”</p><p>“Sounds more like metaphysics to me.”</p><p>Again, Carrington had that intent look. “Perhaps it is both… do they not intrude on one another in the most interesting places? Is it not fascinating, that physics may give us an insight into the nature of time itself? My acquaintance Lord Kelvin opines that the science of physics is over, that there is nothing more left to understand. I would respectfully, but vehemently, disagree. The concept of the conservation and transfer of energy, its exploitation… it is of great personal interest to me.”</p><p>“Your business was coal,” said Jack, nodding. “I can see how it would.”</p><p>“That was where it started, yes,” said Carrington. “But then Charlotte and I were able to uncover so much <em>more</em>.”</p><p>“...What do you mean by that?” asked Jack. “Will you explain?”</p><p>“Of course. It is in the study of thermodynamics, Captain, where my interest truly lies. It drives the modern world, coal and steam and engines, the waterfall on which I built my home, the money I used to build it from the labour of my men to dig up the coal from beneath the ground of this country, fuel for the furnaces to drive the generators and make more. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred, passed into new forms. Yet at once the same science has given us mathematical proof that all things must come to an end, in their time; entropy increases at an steady onwards march. One may conceive of a clock that runs forever, ticking away the inevitable progress of entropy, counting down the seconds in only one direction. It is the only constant of our magnificent clockwork cosmos. Nothing may break with such laws.” He leaned closer to Jack, setting down his glass and looking over him with bright intensity in his pale eyes. “With one notable exception, if certain sources are to be believed… as I am sure you can imagine, even the possibility <em>fascinates</em> me.”</p><p>Gwen frowned, the fine hairs rising on the back of her neck; she didn’t like the way this man was looking at Jack, as though he’d just as soon have him pinned to the wall as one of the specimens in his collection, as sitting at his table sharing food and conversation.</p><p>“Well, I’m afraid I’m not a man of science myself,” said Jack, with a slightly apologetic chuckle. If Gwen hadn’t known him quite so well she knew she wouldn’t have been able to detect the sudden fear behind his affable smile. “I’m afraid I don’t quite know what you mean.”</p><p>Gwen watched him stare at Jack for another long, stretched-out second, that same light dancing in his eyes; he opened his mouth, about to speak, but Gwen cleared her throat.</p><p>“Sir… perhaps after dinner we might see some of your current experiments?” she smiled, trying to seem bland and curious, but harmless. “As my husband said, neither of us know much science. Maybe you can try to explain some of the things you’ve been working on recently?”</p><p>He finally broke his gaze away from Jack, turning to scrutinise her instead. Not with quite the same fervour, she thought, though not without curiosity.</p><p>“Why, yes!” he said, clasping his hands together. “Your interest does flatter me, my dear Mrs. Harkness. I do so appreciate a woman of inquiring mind. Very well then, if your husband is amenable… what do you say to adjourning to the laboratory, instead of the parlour?”</p><p>Jack was smiling again, back to his usual charm. “I would like that very much indeed.”</p><p>“Good. Then I will be happy to show you.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Chapter 14</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Annette Allinson – better known as Nettie – was going about her normal duties when it happened.</p><p>Or rather, she was scrubbing the tiles in the scullery, and her mind was only half on her task. Dinner was on upstairs, she knew, and there’d be dishes to do and table linen to launder after, but for now there was just the sound of voices from the kitchen, Mrs Lewis the cook’s affectionate grumbling at Bethan and Alice, coupled with the occasional clatter of pots and utensils, the sound of Joseph opening up the coal scuttle somewhere further off and the occasional click of Mister Watkins’s heels on the tiles.</p><p>Or maybe not; if she had been paying more attention, she might have noticed that Watkins the butler was much more absent tonight than he usually would be, always checking into the kitchen when Sir Frederick was entertaining dinner guests.</p><p>Not that that happened very much, or at least not since Nettie was a lot younger. She could remember when she was a child, when this place was new – and before, in London, which was long enough ago that she didn’t remember it as well – and her mother had still been alive, working in the kitchen while Nettie sat on a three-legged stool and peeled vegetables for her and Mrs Lewis. There had been many dinners then, many finely-dressed guests coming through; when she was done with the peeling, and any other tasks she’d been given, Nettie had loved nothing better than to slip away and climb the back stairs in secret, to open up the door a crack and peer through into the corridor and into the main house and just <em>watch</em> them. Those ladies in their beautiful silks and velvets like elegant birds she’d seen in a picture, the men holding out their arms to them, perfect and respectful in their starched collars. The thousand magical, unknowable things Sir Frederick kept in glass cases, all through the house.</p><p>Nettie had looked, and had used to imagine herself as a princess from a story, or even a lady scientist like Mistress Charlotte, able to talk in big words about the discoveries of the day. As at home with grease on her hands as in a beautiful gown the colour of the sky at dusk, bright and shining and filled with clever words.</p><p>Often in Nettie’s dreams, Nia and Ifan were there too. When Sir Frederick had moved their household to Wales she’d been scared at first, and sad at the prospect of leaving the friends she had in London behind, street children and the kind woman who sold hot meat pies in the cobbled lane behind the church, under her little canvas awning when it was raining. She’d been scared; a whole new place, a cold castle in the middle of a landscape that felt wild and forbidding for a little girl born in London, who’d never been outside the city before.</p><p>But then she’d met Nia and Ifan, and had loved both of them immediately. Ifan with his soft, dreamy smiles and his freckles and his unerring kindness, Nia with her sharp grins and mischievous laughter and her hands that were rubbed rough by scrubbing and baking and washing with lye but fit so well in Nettie’s hands just the same. Their lilting accents and the way they looked after each other, the way they’d immediately accepted Nettie into their family.</p><p>(She’d kissed Ifan for the first time when they were younger; they’d called each other sweethearts and then realised it was rather silly to do when they were so much more than that, and mostly gone back to being dear friends. Some years later, she’d kissed Nia and taken her to bed, and it had set off something inside her heart, something she still didn’t understand but made her feel like things were slipping into place in her that she’d never understood before, worlds opening up at her feet yet to be explored.)</p><p>So really, with the two of them, and her mother and the household, Nettie hadn’t had much hardship coming here at all.</p><p>Yet still she’d gone up the stairs to peek through the crack in the door.</p><p>When her mother had found her in those days she’d frowned, and sighed, shepherding Nettie back down into the kitchens with just a pinch to the cheek, much as Mrs. Lewis loudly proclaimed she rightly needed a clip around the ear for her transgression.</p><p>But now Nettie’s mother was gone, and Nettie was older, and understood more of the world. The magic was not quite wholly gone, but she had learned that though the world Sir Frederick and his like inhabited was rich and beautiful, she could never join it herself; it wasn’t her place, and never would be. She’d been born the daughter of a servant, and it was only through Charlotte Carrington and her kindness that her mother had not lost her position and been sent off in disgrace.</p><p>Now Mistress Charlotte was dead though, and Nettie’s mother was dead too. But Nettie was still here, and her dreams of joining the world above were just that; dreams, tinged slightly now with resentment as adulthood took the shine of possibility off them.</p><p>Still, she had Nia and Ifan; there was hope there, she knew. If she and Ifan got married, then that would be enough to get the three of them – and Mari, whose kindness had done a lot to ease the pain of losing her own mother – away from here, start on their own. When she closed her eyes, she imagined a cottage somewhere, a country pub a little like the Foxhole Inn, but full of smiling people, a boy with the face of someone she’d known in London whose name she couldn’t remember playing the fiddle or the accordion in the corner. Nia baking bread and pies in the kitchen and Nettie helping her, Mari pouring drinks and Ifan bringing in wood for a warm fire and poking his head into the kitchen to say hello, his hair still smelling of woodsmoke, as Ianto the cat dozed on a steamed-up windowsill. A child or two of her own – of their own, all of them, and any children in their family would never want for love – sitting on a stool in the kitchen and helping with the cooking just like Nettie had done for her own mother.</p><p>She knew it might not happen exactly like that. But it was nice to think about, anyway.</p><p>Ifan was here now, she assumed. Bethan had told her he was to be driving Sir Frederick’s dinner guest up the hill tonight. She’d checked the clock in the hallway earlier, it must be about time now. She’d been hoping she could get away to see him, to hold his windchilled hands in her warm ones and give him a kiss and ask him how Nia had been. She hadn’t seen either of them in a few days and she missed them. Perhaps before dinner was over, she’d have time.</p><p>She was just thinking this, when it happened.</p><p>Nettie dropped the rag she was using to scrub, letting out a cry of wide-eyed horror and backing up to the wall, making the hanging pots rattle and clatter at her back; she barely noticed the sound, her eyes fixed on what was ahead of her.</p><p>There was a light, golden and twisting and <em>expanding</em> somehow, on the other side of the room. She could feel slight tremors, enough to rattle the pots even more, as it lashed out tendrils of golden light. She backed away, not wanting to touch it; she considered running out of the door entirely, but it was blocking the way, whatever it was. As she watched, a dark little hole opened up in the middle of it, about the size of a dinner plate.</p><p>But no, it was not wholly dark, she realised; she could see a flash of movement through it, as though there was something on the other side. And she could hear <em>sound</em> from it: a man’s voice, raised in alarm? It was hard to tell; if it was a voice it sounded very distorted, as though she were listening to it from rooms away and with her head in a bucket of water.</p><p>And anyway, how could a man’s voice be coming from a strange golden light, hanging in the air in the scullery? Nettie didn’t know, but she knew that it frightened her.</p><p>But then just as suddenly as it had appeared it vanished again, imploding in on itself and fading to nothing; as it did, something small fell to the floor from where the hole in the centre of the light had been.</p><p>Nettie blinked, staring at the object on the floor; she could see something small and red against the checked tiles. Cautiously, she tiptoed forwards, curious now the initial fright had passed. She crouched down, peering at the thing lying on the floor.</p><p>And then recoiled, with a cry of horror.</p><p>It was a little splatter of blood, in the midst of which lay three severed human fingertips.</p><p>“<em>Nettie!</em> What’s the matter, are you hurt?”</p><p>She gasped, jumping to her feet so abruptly she nearly tripped over her skirts as she she rose, smoothing down her apron in alarm. To her relief, her mind caught up a moment later, feeling relief as she saw that it was Alice, and not Mrs Lewis or Mister Watkins.</p><p>“I just saw…!” gasped Nettie, trying to regain her composure and to think of what to say; what <em>had</em> she seen? She had no idea, actually. “There was this light!” she gabbled. “And something fell out of it, and oh, mercy, it’s a person’s <em>fingers</em>...”</p><p>Before she could say anything else, Alice had crossed the room in a few strides – walking around the patch of blood – and enfolded Nettie in her arms. Nettie melted into it, tears coming as she let out her breath.</p><p>Alice was all right, really. She’d only been here a few weeks, and at first sight she’d intimidated Nettie; there was something about her that was so self-possessed, her manner somehow different from everyone else Nettie knew; sometimes it felt like she behaved more like didn’t belong below stairs at all, but in the world above. It had made Nettie slightly nervous at first.</p><p>But she wasn’t bad, not really. She was a few years older than Nettie was and she was really quite nice. She had a gentle Scottish accent and a pretty face framed by soft brown hair and and a kind of charm that made you want to trust her. Nettie had told her about Ifan and their hopes, and was even considering telling her about Nia, and the real truth of what she felt for her. That was a huge risk, she knew, but something gave her the feeling Alice would understand. And she badly wanted to talk about; that was what love did, made you want to tell the world all about it.</p><p>Alice drew back, wiping Nettie’s tears away with the corner of her apron. Nettie expected her to ask her more, but Alice just smiled. “Your young man’s waiting out by the stables,” she said with a wink. “If you go to him now you’ll have a little bit of time to see him before you’re needed here again. I’ll talk to Mrs Lewis.”</p><p>“Oh… but Alice...”</p><p>She shook her head, seeing Nettie’s eyes dart to the puddle of blood, taking both her hands and commanding her attention with gentle, understanding eyes. “Don’t worry about a thing, dear. I’ll clean this up… you must’ve been working too hard, tired yourself out. You must be seeing things. Yes?”</p><p>“...Yes, must’ve,” said Nettie with a frown, avoiding the puddle of blood with her gaze; she didn’t want to look. “That must be it.”</p><p>Alice squeezed her hands with a smile. “Go on,” she said. “Give your pretty Welsh lad my love.”</p><p>Nettie giggled. “<em>I’m</em> the one who’s marrying him. Not trying to steal him away, are you?”</p><p>Alice laughed too, kissing her on the cheek. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Besides, I told you before, I’m well spoken for.” She patted her on the arm. “Now, go on! Off with you.”</p><p>Nettie didn’t need telling twice; edging around the puddle of blood – still trying not to look too closely – she fled from the room.</p><hr/><p>After Nettie had gone, Alice stood alone for a long moment. Then she crouched down and peered carefully at the bloody fingers on the floor, inspecting them dispassionately. Satisfied with what she saw, she got up again, putting her hand in her apron pocket; she drew out a Torchwood energy scanner, switched it on and did a scan of the room, a small frown appearing on her brow at what she saw.</p><p>She looked back down at the fingers again; carefully, she took a small glass sample jar and tongs out of her other pocket and picked up the fingertips one by one, putting them inside and sealing it.</p><p>She’d compare the prints to those they had on file later, or bring them to Emily and Charles to look at when she was able to get out of here. Whenever that would be; if something had gone wrong with the plan, and specifically Jack’s part in it, she might well be here for a while longer. That was annoying. It had been weeks she’d been here, ingratiating herself with the household and pretending to be nothing but a servant, and Alice was <em>bored</em>. She wanted to go back home to Torchwood, to do some proper work rather than all this dull housework, inane chatter and quiet stasis, this waiting for Carrington to go for the bait. She wanted to see Emily and kiss her and bury her head between her thighs. She wanted to burn off her frustration by killing a few weevils, the thrill of the chase and the way those nights usually ended up, the two of them having fierce, electrifying victory sex in their small room, deep under the Hub.</p><p>Still, she would get out eventually, Alice knew. And if Jack Harkness’s mistakes delayed her, she could always wring his neck and still have him come back. Then, she could do it again if she wanted, depending on how inconvenienced she was feeling. Maybe then he’d learn a lesson about sticking to plans.</p><p>But the man had his uses, she had to acknowledge. Including this sort of work. She sighed, putting the sample jar back into her apron pocket.</p><p>Not long now, thought Alice Guppy, going to the door to try to find some lye to clean away the last of the blood. Not long now.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Chapter 15</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ianto and Jack ran down the gentle downward curve of the tunnel side by side, not turning to look back and see whether their pursuer was gaining on them. Or not quite; Ianto couldn’t help darting a quick glance behind him, just enough to see that same pair of boots, the slope not allowing him to see much more. But though whoever it was was still following at a steady pace, they weren’t running. Just walking, as though they were in no hurry at all.</p><p>For some reason, that thought sent a frisson of unease up Ianto’s spine, worse than if their pursuer had been running full speed and firing a gun at their heels.</p><p>He gritted his teeth, putting on a burst of speed and motioning for Jack to follow, reaching out to drag him along by the coat sleeve. At the same moment though, Jack reached out too and their hands caught and clasped in between them, so they were running hand in hand.</p><p>That was good enough, Ianto thought, pulling Jack by the hand. He was already getting a little out of breath from their sprint, but just up ahead he could now see the round blast door, still ajar from where he, Gwen, and his own Jack had come through earlier. They could rest when they were behind it. As they reached it, Ianto shoved Jack through first and turned, motioning him to be silent as he peered apprehensively back through the crack.</p><p>But the tunnel behind them was empty.</p><p>Ianto let out his breath, half-slumping back against the wall. Must have lost them beyond the slope of the tunnel. That, at least, was slightly reassuring, even if only because if whoever it was really wanted them dead, they could have easily shot them before allowing them out of line of sight.</p><p>Maybe he’d been overreacting, he thought. Still, he should close the door if possible; it couldn’t be opened from the other side and he knew it would make him feel safer.</p><p>“Help me with this,” he said to Jack, shouldering himself up off the wall and nodding at the door.</p><p>Jack smirked at him a little. “Sure, but I’m afraid you’ll have to let go of my hand first.”</p><p>Ianto blinked, realising he was still clasping Jack’s hand in a white-knuckled grip. He let it go abruptly, like a hot pan. Jack snorted, and Ianto gave him a withering look, feeling himself blush. “Just help me with the door,” he grumbled.</p><p>To his credit, Jack did as he was told, putting his shoulder into it and helping Ianto push the heavy cast-iron door to. When it was closed, Ianto put his hands on the wheel, and locked the passageway shut with a grunt of effort, the <em>ka-chunk</em> of well-oiled, heavy machinery sliding into place. He sighed, leaning back against the door in relief.</p><p>Jack stood in front of him, arms folded, eyebrow raised. “So, gonna tell me what that was about? Who was that looking for you? And why?”</p><p>Ianto shook his head. “When I figure it out myself, you’ll be the first to know.”</p><p>“What if it was someone good?”</p><p>Ianto raised an eyebrow at him. “There are only two people I trust around here, and I’d have recognised either of their voices when they said my name.”</p><p>Jack sighed, giving Ianto a long, careful look. “Okay. Well...” he turned around, peering up the tunnel ahead; they were at the upwards-sloping section now, the lines of electric bulbs on either side converging like train tracks in the distance, then disappearing entirely. “Guess the only way from here is up.”</p><p>Ianto frowned; the tunnel, he remembered, led up to the castle. But then again, Jack was right; there were only two options. The first was to wait here, to stay put and hope that eventually, once his own Jack and Gwen were done with whatever they were doing up at the castle, they’d eventually be able to come and find him. But that meant they’d find this Jack too, and then he’d probably have a tear in the fabric of reality on his conscience. Or something. And that was assuming he could even keep this Jack from running off on his own anyway; going by earlier, that was easier said than done.</p><p>...Well. Technically, Ianto could think of at least two ways to try to keep Jack from running off again. But those were more plans Y and Z territory, and currently he was coasting at about plan F, so he put it firmly from his mind for the moment.</p><p>The other option was he could keep going. Follow Jack to wherever the tunnels led them, try to keep him safe and away from his own Jack and Gwen, and generally out of trouble. Definitely also easier said than done, Ianto knew.</p><p>But also probably his only option, he realised, given that Jack had already turned and started walking up the corridor.</p><p>Ianto sighed, stepping forward and grabbing the cape of Jack’s Ulster. “Wait.”</p><p>Jack turned, looking annoyed. “I’m not staying here all nice and safe, while–”</p><p>“I wasn’t asking you to. I’m coming with you,” said Ianto. “Just. Hang on a second.” He looked back at the round, sealed cast-iron door, running his palm over the smooth paint. “I… I think I need to do something first.”</p><p>“Oh?” said Jack, leaning over his shoulder as Ianto took his car keys out of his pocket – trying not to think that he might never have cause to actually use them again – and started scratching letters on the door. “Foxhole… Nia… that’s the pub, and the girl that works there.”</p><p>“Yep. I’m leaving a clue for myself. Well… past me, that is. Or future me I suppose, depending on how you want to think about it.” He frowned. “God, this is confusing. But this message won’t be, hopefully… very nice and simple, to the point. A nudge in the right direction.”</p><p>Jack smirked. “...Your <em>right direction</em> is you pointing yourself right at me?”</p><p>“So it would seem.”</p><p>Not that he was completely sure it was the right direction given that he was still living it, Ianto thought, slightly troubled by the realisation as he started scratching numbers below.</p><p>“Hey, that’s my access code!” protested Jack. “You can’t just leave that here!”</p><p>“Too late,” said Ianto. “I already did, so not doing so would cause timeline problems. Anyway, the codes all change soon enough anyway… shouldn’t be a security risk, I shouldn’t think.”</p><p>“Hmph,” said Jack, looking put out. “Why do you need it, anyway?”</p><p>“Well, it stopped you killing me outright, didn’t it?”</p><p>Jack made a face. “That’s it?”</p><p>“Don’t know yet,” admitted Ianto. “Maybe there’s something else I need it for.” He finished scratching in the metal and put the keys in his pocket. “Since apparently it wasn’t much help in getting you to actually listen.”</p><p>Jack grinned at that, spreading his hands in a shrug. “And yet, here I am” he said.</p><p>“Here you are.” Ianto turned back to Jack, brushing paint flecks off his hands, to see him staring at him. “And causality is preserved, for now. I hope. ...Though, now I think about it, I read the code off the door… and then wrote it for… myself… so, I don’t actually know where I learned it from.” He frowned, shaking himself. “Ah well, I suppose I’ll just worry about the existentially troubling implications of all this later.” He looked Jack up and down. “In... several respects, honestly.”</p><p>Jack laughed. “That’s time travel, baby!”</p><p>Ianto winced. “From the bottom of my heart, <em>please</em> don’t ever call me that again.”</p><p>“You’re the boss” said Jack, with a wink.</p><p>Ianto just sighed, resisting the urge to massage his temples as he started walking up the tunnel, knowing Jack was following behind.</p>
<hr/><p>“Excuse me, Sir Frederick,” said Gwen politely, as the three of them rose from the table to leave. “Before we retire, may I have a moment alone with my husband?”</p><p>He turned his eyes on them, as they headed towards the door. “Why, certainly. Watkins!” he said, as the silent, silver-haired butler stepped back into the room from the corridor, brushing an invisible speck from his sleeve. “Is all in place for the demonstration?”</p><p>“It will be presently, Sir,” said Watkins.</p><p>“Very good. Then, show Captain and Mrs Harkness to the blue parlour. At such as time as they are ready, please escort them to the laboratory.”</p><p>“Of course, Sir.”</p><p>“Thank you,” said Jack, nodding at Carrington and Watkins, and taking Gwen’s arm.</p><p>“Of course.” Carrington raised a gingery eyebrow a very slight fraction. “I do hope all is well?”</p><p>“Very much so,” said Jack, favouring him with his best wink and grin again and slipping his hand around Gwen’s waist, as they left the dining room. “But you know, occasionally one must have a moment alone with one’s wife, yes? It’s been too long since the coach up the hill. She gets ever so impatient. But hey, can you blame her?”</p><p>“I shall refrain from commenting either way,” Carrington chuckled, but returned Jack’s gaze with scrutiny of his own. Gwen groaned, and would have stomped on Jack’s foot again, if they hadn’t been standing out in the open. “Well, go on then. We shall, ah, reconvene when you’re through.”</p><p>Jack gave him a blinding smile and a wink, squeezing Gwen close to his side and turning to Watkins who was there to lead them away. She retaliated by putting her hand around his waist in turn and pinching him right above the hip, but to her slight annoyance he didn’t react, merely steering her smoothly down the corridor.</p><p>Watkins led them to a door, behind which turned out to be a plush sitting room, the decor all shades of powder blue. Jack closed the door, then swept himself dramatically down into a reclining position on the chaise, grinning. “Care to join me, my darling wife?”</p><p>She glared, hands on her hips as she started to pace. “Not bloody likely, <em>husband dear</em>.”</p><p>“Okay, okay I was just trying to lighten the mood.” Jack grimaced, miming holding his hands up in surrender. He grinned. “You know I’m taken, anyway.”</p><p>“<em>Yeah</em> you are.” Gwen rounded on him, dropping her voice, holding up a finger and glaring him into silence as she gestured back into the corridor. “And while we’re on the subject, what the hell was that?”</p><p>Jack shrugged. “It worked, didn’t it? Never underestimate the old “excuse us for twenty minutes” trick…” he gave an exaggerated wink, and she rolled her eyes. “Hey, more often than not people don’t ask any questions. When they do, sometimes they want to join you and then <em>bam</em>, you have them alone for kidnapping, interrogation, and/or any other activities of your choice. And if all that fails, you’ve got twenty minutes alone in a cupboard or similar with your partner in crime.” Jack’s face looked distant and wistful. “This one time, when we were working that department store case, Ianto and I–”</p><p>“<em>Okay</em>,” said Gwen, glaring. “That’s quite enough of that.”</p><p>“Yes, <em>Ma’am</em>,” said Jack, rolling his eyes. “So, did you actually want to talk shop, or...?”</p><p>“Yeah,” said Gwen, collecting herself a bit, dropping her voice even further in case Watkins was listening at the door. “Carrington. Suspicious as hell, yeah?”</p><p>“<em>Oh</em>, yeah,” said Jack, serious again. “I don’t know what his deal is, but he’s hiding something.”</p><p>Gwen glanced nervously at the door; she’d taken off her fur-lined cape in the entrance-hall with one of her guns still tucked inside the pocket, and Watkins had whisked their outer layers away to the cloak room. She’d managed to be quick enough to slip her other gun into the folds of velvet around her hips too, but she still felt rather exposed. She didn’t like having to rely so much on Jack to keep her safe, but she supposed that was par for the course in this case.</p><p>She swallowed, trying to steer her thoughts back to the problem at hand. “His wife,” she said. “Charlotte. She died seven years ago but he mentions her all the time. There’s something about the way he talks about her, too...” Gwen frowned. “Nia said the servants here never saw the body, or her children. Said there were funny rumours at the time, but didn’t want to tell me more.”</p><p>“What are you thinking?” Jack narrowed his eyes.</p><p>“I’m thinking I’d like to talk to someone below stairs if I can get a chance to,” said Gwen. “...Listen, I’m trying not to jump to conclusions here, but do you think he could have killed her? Carrington, I mean?”</p><p>“I definitely think it’s a possibility,” said Jack, staring at the door. “I just don’t know why. And I don’t know if it matters to this.”</p><p>Gwen stared at him. “Jack, it matters that she’s dead. And her children, too.”</p><p>“Yes, I know,” said Jack patiently. “I mean, if it matters to us getting home. That’s my priority right now, and it should be yours too. This isn’t our case.”</p><p>“But...”</p><p>“Gwen. I said I’d get you back home, and Ianto too. Don’t lose sight of what we’re here for.”</p><p>She sighed. “Yeah, I know.” She frowned, feeling a stab of guilt as she realised Jack was absolutely right. But still. “Hopefully seeing his lab – hers too, by the sounds of it – will shed some light.”</p><p>“Here’s hoping,” said Jack, but there was a hint of sternness to his voice. Gwen understood, she really did; for her own part, she was trying her very best not to feel intrigued by all this, for all she wanted to get home. And that, in its turn, was making her feel guilty; she really did want to get back to Rhys at the same time, and to make sure Ianto came out of this unscathed.</p><p>“Right, well,” said Gwen stiffly, hands on her hips and her foot tapping as she stared down at him. “We’d best get going. ...And I still can’t believe you’re actually kind of rubbish at this!” she grumbled. “For the record, if I’d had the choice about who I was going to be pretend-married to, I’d’ve picked Ianto any day!”</p><p>“Yeah, well, me too,” retorted Jack, a little testily. “But unfortunately this is the nineteenth century... and in case you’d forgotten, Ianto’s down in the village trying not to die right now. It’s our job to keep him safe and get you back to your real husband. And I promise, I am doing <em>everything</em> I can to make that happen.”</p><p>And that was it; Gwen stared back at Jack’s face, feeling tears come to her eyes all of a sudden, coalescing from a whole evening’s worth of unease and fear. “I don’t know what to do, Jack. I’m way out of my depth with this. Because before, whatever Torchwood threw at us, I’d always know that I’d be going home to Rhys when it was all over. But it’s bloody 1899 and Rhys hasn’t even been born yet, and I don’t have that to hold on to anymore, and…” she sniffed, wiping at her eyes impatiently. “I don’t know what to do, Jack. I don’t know how to operate like this.”</p><p>Jack sighed, patting the chaise beside him. She hesitated for a moment before joining him, but when she did he took both her hands in his, running his thumb briefly over her wedding ring and squeezing her fingers tight. “I’ll tell you what you do, Gwen. You keep holding onto it anyway. Because Rhys <em>is</em> somewhere out there, and we <em>will</em> get you back to him. There’s so much time you two still have together, so much you can be, and do.” She got the sense that he wasn’t only talking about Rhys as he clutched her hands in his, running his thumb over her ring again. “So you keep holding onto the idea that soon he’ll be back in your arms again. Cling to it with everything you are and fight for it and don’t ever let it go. Because that’s the only way we’re gonna be able to do this.”</p><p>She looked into his eyes, and for a moment she saw everything. “Oh, <em>Jack</em>,” she said, flinging her arms around him in a hug. “We’ll get back to Ianto, too. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll make sure–”</p><p>“Shh. None of that, now. I don’t want <em>any</em> of this to be the last thing you do.” He hugged her back, and after a moment she felt him lean down and press a kiss to her hair, right on the crown of her head, his voice hardly more than a whisper. “But I know. I know.”</p><p>He cupped her face, wiping a tear off her cheek with his thumb. “C’mon,” he said. “Let’s get this done.”</p><p>Gwen nodded, and squared her shoulders as she rose to her feet again.</p><p>When they opened the door, Watkins was straightening his coat sleeves, but turned to bow respectfully to them ushering them down the corridor. Gwen squeezed Jack’s arm on her elbow, as he led them down the hall and towards the stairs; it was odd, traversing this house when she’d seen it derelict and overgrown this very morning in the twenty-first century. She’d been distracted from that aspect of all this before, by the sheer volume of Carrington’s collection and the commentary he was keeping up, but now that Watkins was leading them silently she had more of a chance to take in the layout; this corridor must lead around the courtyard, where Ianto had gone to check the Rift monitors. Would go. Or something. Time travel was confusing in terms of tenses, Gwen decided.</p><p>Soon enough though, Watkins was leading them through a wing they hadn’t been to yet and to a narrow spiral staircase, with an ornately carved mahogany banister that led down. She might have thought it was a servants’ stair, except for how far down it went, apparently without any passages leading off to other rooms, which seemed to rather defy the point of such things. Gwen darted a glance at Jack; she could see him frowning slightly.</p><p>Gwen didn’t blame him. When she’d pictured the lab, she’d thought perhaps it might be a room in one of the towers, full of mechanical odds and ends like parts of the house were. But instead they seemed to be heading down to a door that opened onto what looked for all the world like a cellar, lit with the same electric light fittings as the rest of the house.</p><p>And not just any cellar, Gwen realised. She felt a wash of déja vu as she realised that they were coming up to the place where she’d been scanning for Rift energy readings, back in the present. <em>Future</em>. Whatever.</p><p>This time Jack’s eyes did meet hers, and she could see he was thinking the same thing she was; sure enough, Watkins was leading them to the cast iron trapdoor that she, Jack and Ianto had hauled open. It didn’t take Watkins nearly so much effort; the door seemed to be well-oiled rather than rusted over, and as well as that, he produced what must be a specially designed iron crowbar from an alcove in the stone wall.</p><p>“After you, Captain, Ma’am,” he said, indicating the stairs down into the floor.</p><p>Gwen couldn’t help another look at Jack, a little apprehensive about walking into the unknown, under ground. But they could hardly back out now, she knew, even if they wanted to. It would only look more suspicious.</p><p>And so Jack let his arm loose from hers and took her hand, as though to help her more easily down the stairs. He gave it a reassuring squeeze. She forced a gracious smile, her other hand going to the folds of heavy ruched velvet at her hip, where she could feel the comforting outline of the grip of her gun. Just in case. She was comforted in the knowledge of how quickly she knew Jack could draw too. She felt suddenly glad to be with him, and a little sorry for Ianto all alone in the village.</p><p>Still, at least Ianto was safe, she thought once again, letting that notion comfort her a little as she heard the sound of the trapdoor closing behind them.</p><p>It was not a comforting sound. At least it wasn’t dark, though; again, everything down here seemed to be lit with electric light. She remembered what Carrington had told them about the power coming from the waterfall. As she did, she became consciously aware that she could feel its deep, rumbling vibration all around her. There was another noise too, she realised as she listened; something rhythmic and mechanical, just low enough that it was on the edge of her hearing and felt more like the ceaseless pounding of music from a far off room, except much deeper. Or perhaps the beat of some great, mechanical heart, she thought with a slight shudder, unable to say where the thought had come from.</p><p>Watkins led them down the stairs they’d traversed earlier, by torchlight with the chilly air and the damp smell of neglect pressing in all around.</p><p>Now though, it was <em>warm</em>, Gwen realised. Even warmer than the house, which was heated by generously supplied hearths. She frowned, just looking around to try and see any reason why might be so warm, when Watkins cleared his throat, leading them to a stop on the landing with the two doors.</p><p>Before, Gwen remembered, they’d gone left, and it had taken them down towards the village. Give or take a century or so, but she assumed that they tunnel led to the same place. Now, though, the butler turned to the right, opening the door with a key from a heavy ring he seemed to produce from nowhere.</p><p>The other side was a little bit of an anticlimax; more stairs, though not a spiral this time but a straight flight, leading down and down in one direction. Gwen had rather lost track of how deep they were, but at least it was clear where they were heading. Indeed, there was only one place to go really, a single door at the bottom of the staircase.</p><p>This door looked different than the others, Gwen thought; heavy cast iron, like the round blast door in they’d seen in the tunnel, and with some sort of elaborate locking mechanism.</p><p>Watkins opened it – she couldn’t see exactly how, with his back turned – and held it for them. “The laboratory,” he said. “After you.”</p><p>Gwen peered through, past Jack who was a little in front of her. She saw enough in the space around his dark silhouette to make her let out a small, involuntary gasp of awe.</p><p>The space was enormous and rounded, the size of the Hub or even bigger; she couldn’t see quite how far it extended, but it seemed to go both upwards and downwards, its ceiling a great dome. In the middle was a series of massive pistons, moving with consistent rhythm up and down. They were driving some sort of machine below, but she couldn’t see much more, because the whole thing was surrounded by a nimbus of roiling, shifting golden light, popping and arcing vast magnetic coils spaced around the sides of the chamber every now and then, so bright it made her eyes hurt to look at, burning trails across her retinas.</p><p>But she recognised the light, she realised with a gasp. She’d seen Rift flares before, most recently today when they’d traveled through time. The shade of gold wasn’t like the arc light of an electric current, it was different to a flame or a lightbulb or anything else that existed; it was time itself, not of the world and yet of it entirely.</p><p>Jack clearly had the realisation at the exact same time she did, because he froze in the doorway, simply staring at it all, instinctively moving half a step in front of Gwen as though to try to shield her.</p><p>She made to come up beside him, a little annoyed at his protectiveness; she could handle herself, couldn’t she? But even as she had thought, several things happened in very quick succession.</p><p>First of all, there was the motion of a silhouette ahead of them in the chamber, that she hadn’t noticed before, what with the brightness behind it. At the same moment came the crack of a gunshot, and Jack was crying out as blood exploded from his forehead, crumpling to the ground in the doorway. Gwen yelled in fury and alarm, hand going instantly for her gun. But even as she pulled it from the folds of her skirts, there was a sound from behind her, like the scraping of metal; she whirled, meaning to strike out and shoot, but she wasn’t quick enough. As she turned she caught a glimpse of Watkins, his neat, silvery hair and pale face lit brilliantly by the glow of the Riftlight, wielding the crowbar like a club. Before she’d even pulled her gun he had swung it at her head in a wide, precise arc.</p><p>Lights exploded behind Gwen’s eyes for a moment, before all went abruptly black.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Chapter 16</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“So,” said Ianto, as he and Jack walked along the tunnel’s gentle upwards slope. “As long as we’re just walking, mind telling me what your mission here was actually supposed to be? I feel a little in the dark with all this.”</p><p>Jack snorted. “Hey, you can talk!”</p><p>“What’s that s’posed to mean?”</p><p>“Uh, it’s pretty obvious there’s a lot you haven’t told me?”</p><p>“To preserve the timeline,” said Ianto smoothly. “...Also, I don’t know as much myself as you seem to think.”</p><p>Jack cocked an eyebrow at him. “Didn’t do your research before popping back from the future, huh?”</p><p>“You could say that,” admitted Ianto. “But I’m trying to catch up. So…?”</p><p>Jack sighed, shoving his hands down in his coat pockets. “Tell me why I should trust you.”</p><p>“Because despite everything, <em>I</em> trust <em>you</em>,” said Ianto, meeting his eye for a long, charged moment.</p><p>Jack held his gaze for a few seconds more, various expressions passing across his face before he rearranged his features into one of his more typical smirks. “<em>Despite</em> everything you say? Excuse me, what have I ever done to you?”</p><p>“Jack, you’ve threatened me with violence several times already today.”</p><p>“...Point taken,” said Jack, looking a little contrite. He squinted at Ianto. “You <em>trust</em> me, you say?”</p><p>“Yes,” said Ianto seriously, holding Jack’s gaze again and trying not to let his nervousness show. This was a gamble, but if he couldn’t rely on Jack – even if this wasn’t <em>his</em> Jack, not yet, not really – then he couldn’t rely on anyone. “With my life.”</p><p>Jack opened his mouth as though to make some other quip, but he must have seen something in Ianto’s expression, because he abruptly shut it again. “...Okay,” he said. “What d’you want to know?”</p><p>“...Um, everything you know, really,” said Ianto, caught a little off-guard by Jack’s compliance; he’d expected to have to argue much more. “Why were you sent here?”</p><p>“I told you. Just to have dinner with Carrington, up at the castle.”</p><p>“Were you told to investigate anything specific?”</p><p>“Nothing really… just keep an eye out, keep scanning for those Rift traces whenever I could get away, and logging the data...” he frowned. “Why?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” said Ianto, frowning too. “Just seems odd to send you all the way out here with such vague instructions...”</p><p>“Maybe,” said Jack with a shrug. “That’s just what Torchwood’s like, though. I get an assignment, I do it, I get paid as long as I don’t make a fuss or ask too many questions.”</p><p>Ianto frowned, a little troubled by the implications of this. “So, your boss sent you out here…?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>He remembered what Jack had told him earlier. “Emily and Alice, yes? They’ve been handling the case themselves up until now?”</p><p>Jack nodded. “Emily’s the boss, Alice is her second in command, and as far as I know they’ve been working this case between them. Emily told me she came out here to ask Carrington some questions a few months back, but Alice has been in and out doing undercover work since then, because they’d already seen Emily’s face up at the castle.”</p><p>“Oh,” said Ianto. “So, why do they need you instead? Was Alice’s cover compromised, or…?”</p><p>Jack shrugged. “I don’t know. Like I said, I don’t ask to many questions. ...To tell the truth, I <em>was</em> a bit surprised though; they don’t send me out on covert jobs too often. Seem to think I’m some kind of liability.”</p><p>“...No comment.”</p><p>Jack gave Ianto a winning smile. “But hey, I’m not complaining. It’s nice to get out to the countryside, especially if the view’s this good.”</p><p>“Jack, we’re in an underground tunnel.”</p><p>“Oh, I know.”</p><p>Ianto shook his head. “You’re impossible.”</p><p>“And yet, you still <em>trust</em> me, apparently.” The way he’d said it made it clear he thought Ianto had meant to say something else, and the worse part was, he couldn’t wholly deny that either. Jack looked almost gleeful, the bastard, Ianto thought.</p><p>“Regrettable but true,” said Ianto, deliberately casting around for some distraction, before this line of conversation got too much further. “Well then. You said you were meant to take Rift readings, so, um. Let’s both do that.”</p><p>“Whatever you say,” said Jack, taking out his old-fashioned energy scanner again at the same moment Ianto did. “...Huh,” he said. “That weird energy field. It seems to be getting stronger.”</p><p>“We have been moving. Maybe the source is up ahead, and we’ve just got closer to it?” said Ianto, who had a bad feeling about all of this, remembering how the same field had led them down into the tunnels in the first place, back in 2009. But they hadn’t found anything out of the ordinary then; they’d only managed to slip through time.</p><p>“Could be,” said Jack. “I wonder if – <em>whoa!</em>” He whirled around. “Did you get that too?”</p><p>“Yep,” said Ianto, who had also recorded the sudden spike in the field. It had, however, come at the same moment as a sound from behind them, echoing oddly through the tunnel. “Did you hear…?”</p><p>“Yeah,” said Jack, pulling them back against the wall as they both peered back the way they’d come. Backs against the tunnel wall, their eyes met. “It’s just the door you sealed back that way...”</p><p>Once again, Ianto felt a chill run up his back. He squinted back the way they’d come, but once again the upwards curve of the tunnel meant he could only see a certain distance.</p><p>But as they both looked, staying quiet for a moment, Ianto became aware of another sound. Footsteps against stone, slow and steady as they had been before.</p><p>His eyes widened with fear as he met Jack’s gaze, disturbed. “There’s no way through,” he hissed. “I’m not going crazy, am I? We sealed the door?”</p><p>“Pretty sure, yeah,” breathed Jack. His eyes were suddenly alight; he looked almost as fascinated as he was afraid. “Which means they didn’t come through the door.”</p><p>Ianto bit his lip, with a growing sense of foreboding. “They’re following us, but they don’t need to chase us,” he said, dropping his voice to a whisper, even though rationally, he doubted it would make a difference. “They just keep following.”</p><p>“Creepy.”</p><p>“Just a bit. Any ideas about why?”</p><p>Jack shook his head slowly, and they both listened to the footsteps for a moment. “We could stop and let them catch up? Then we could just... ask.”</p><p>“Um. Let’s save that one for later,” whispered Ianto hastily. “How about we carry on running away instead?”</p><p>“They’ll still be following,” whispered Jack back. “We could find out what they want. How they keep catching up.”</p><p>“What, and just hope our creepy teleporting stalker is friendly?” hissed Ianto.</p><p>“Point taken. Let’s go.”</p><p>“Good.”</p><p>They began to walk, and Jack smirked, holding out his hand to Ianto. “Still wanna hold my hand when you get scared?”</p><p>Ianto rolled his eyes. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?”</p><p>Jack grinned. “Nope.”</p><p>And despite the situation, despite the fears that threatened to overwhelm him, Ianto couldn’t help but smile a little bit himself.</p><hr/><p>Ifan Jones was lingering around the stables off the castle courtyard, and had been for some time now. He was wondering if he should pay a visit to the kitchens and see if Mrs Lewis would spare him a cup of hot broth for a cold night, or whether she’d more likely dispense a clip around the ear instead; it wholly depended on her mood, he decided, which depended on how well these guests were taking to their meal. Still, either way he’d probably get a chance to say hello to Nettie, which would be something at least.</p><p>It was just as he was thinking this that he saw Nettie herself running across the courtyard, wrapped hastily in a shawl over her dress and apron. Her hair was starting to blow out from under her cap a bit in the wind, boots sliding on the courtyard flag stones as she ran.</p><p>“Nettie!” he said, instantly cheered at the sight of her. “Careful, there’s ice. What’re you in such a hurry for, hmm?” he frowned, as she got closer and he realised she looked upset, throwing himself into his arms when she reached the stable eves. “Oh, Nettie, what’s the matter?”</p><p>“Ifan!” she said, against his chest. “I just saw something… horrible, and I don’t understand...”</p><p>She seemed a little out of breath, and as she drew back he saw that there were unshed tears in her soft brown eyes. He frowned, taking her face in his hands. “Now then, what’s happened?”</p><p>“I don’t… I don’t quite know how to explain it...”</p><p>“Try?”</p><p>She slipped her hands into his, and told him in halting tones what she’d seen in the scullery earlier; the strange golden light hanging in the air, the gruesome sight of the severed fingers falling to the floor. Nettie had certainly been right about one thing; it was an odd tale, and Ifan didn’t really know what to make of it.</p><p>Still, that was far from the first thing on his mind right now; what mattered most was Nettie. And so when she was done he just pulled her into his arms again and held her, swaying side to side a little bit and muttering endearments in both Welsh and English under his breath. “Shh,” he said. “Shush now, it’s all right.”</p><p>Nettie sniffed. “What do you think it was?”</p><p>“I’ve no idea,” confessed Ifan. “Trick of the light, most probably. The fingers… some poor soul had an accident with a carving knife? You shouldn’t’ve had to find it like that, but it’ll be all right. They’ll heal right up, whoever they are.” He stood back and looked at her face, gently tucking in a stray dark curl that had come loose from her cap. “Yes?”</p><p>“Yes,” said Nettie, frowning down at her hands bunched in her apron. But then she sighed. “...Yes, you’re right Ifan. Of course you are.” She reached up for him, and he hugged her again, chin resting on top of her cotton cap; she was warmer than he was, from being inside, but then again she was always a bit warmer than he was. She drew back and stood on her tiptoes, moving to kiss him at the same time as he did; her lips too were very warm, soft and sweet.</p><p>“That was from Nia. I was under strict orders to pass one on,” he said with a chuckle. “...Oh, and this one’s from me.” He kissed her again, and their noses bumped, cold against warm. By the time they parted, Nettie was smiling again, squeezing his hands.</p><p>She tutted, smoothing down his jacket and scarf solicitously. “You must be cold, waiting our here.”</p><p>“Not so much now. Still, was wondering about Mrs Lewis… might she be in the mood to give me something warm to eat?”</p><p>Nettie sucked air through her teeth. “You could try, but I doubt it. Sorry… first guests in who knows how long, she’s all in a tizzy.”</p><p>Ifan gave a martyred sigh. “S’pose I’ll have to settle for kisses then.”</p><p>She laughed, her breath gusting out in a mist in the chilly air. “I missed you. And Nia.”</p><p>“And we missed <em>you</em>.”</p><p>“I’m glad you’re here.” She glanced back at the horses behind him. “You drove the Captain and his wife up from the village, then?”</p><p>He nodded. “Some odd city types, them. Always saying funny things, you know? Still, the Captain tipped me handsomely, so you won’t hear me complain.” He dropped his voice, grinning. “Actually, speaking of handsome...”</p><p>“Ooh, the Captain? I heard he was!” said Nettie, leaning closer conspiratorially. “Bethan said so, but you know the type she likes, so I wasn’t sure...”</p><p>“Oh, I reckon he’d get anyone swooning over him. He and his wife both.” he grinned, feeling his face heat as he thought back to them. It was one of the things he liked about Nettie; with her, he felt free. With the way she was in love with his sister and Nia loved her back, they’d come to an understanding a while ago, and it had helped Ifan to understand this about himself too; he appreciated a handsome man as much as he did a pretty woman, and that, as far as he was was concerned, was the end of that. Indeed, he was rather more sanguine about the whole thing than Nia was, but then she’d always been able to fret enough for all three of them.</p><p>Ifan sighed dreamily, just to make Nettie laugh more and chase away her earlier mood. “The prettiest pair you ever did see together...”</p><p>“Except for us when we get married,” she said, patting his arm.</p><p>He grinned, excited to be reminded; he hoped that it would make things easier for Nettie and Nia, yes, but as well as that, Ifan had known since he’d met Nettie and become fast friends with her when they were children, that he’d marry her or no one; the fact that she and Nia had fallen for one another had changed that not a whit. “Right you are, of course. We’ll give the Harknesses a run for their money, that’s for sure.”</p><p>Nettie laughed, back to her usual bright peals again with her tears now forgotten. Behind Ifan, one of the horses huffed and whickered softly at the sound, the big, gentle chestnut mare he’d brought up from the village.</p><p>“See, even Delia agrees,” he said, patting her mane. “Don’t you, darling?”</p><p>Nettie had just leaned over to give her a pat too, when there came a voice from out in the courtyard, ringing sharp against the stones.</p><p>“Annette Allinson, what’s the meaning of this? You’re needed in the kitchens.”</p><p>Nettie whirled, instinctively brushing down her apron and standing up straighter in alarm as she saw Watkins the butler striding over, looking even more irritated than usual. “Sorry, Mister Watkins. I was just, ah, saying hello to Ifan...”</p><p>“Yes, I can see that,” he snapped. “Come on now, back to work with you or you’re scrubbing the drains for a month. Up to the dining room, to help Bethan and Joseph clear away the dinner service now the guests have retired with Sir Frederick.”</p><p>Ifan felt a flash of sympathy as he saw how tense Nettie was; he didn’t envy her a man like the notoriously sharp Watkins to answer to. He could speak for her, he knew, but based on similar situations in the past he knew she preferred him to stay out of it, that it would only make things worse and more precarious for their plan to leave and start again somewhere new as soon as they’d saved up enough; it all depended on Nettie getting leave to go.</p><p>And so he just left his hand on her arm in silent support as she curtsied nervously.</p><p>“Yes, sir. Of course sir.”</p><p>“Quite right,” he said. “And if you can tell me where that damned girl Alice has got to, I won’t even dock your pay for laziness.”</p><p>Nettie blinked. “Alice? She was in the scullery with me, last I saw? Can’t you find her?”</p><p>He just gave her a slightly contemptuous look. “Apparently not. She’s always disappearing lately, the empty-headed thing.”</p><p>“Oh,” said Nettie sadly, and Ifan could tell how much she wanted to defend Alice, but held her tongue. “Yes, well. If I see her I'll send her to you.”</p><p>But Watkins was already turning his attention to Ifan, ignoring her.</p><p>“And as for you, Jones,” he said, looking down his nose at him with chilly disdain in his pale eyes, “be off with you, back home. You won’t be needed here tonight.”</p><p>Ifan blinked in surprise. “But… Captain and Mrs Harkness will be needing their coach back down to the village,” he said. “I’m to wait for them, and bring them back down to–”</p><p>“No, you are not,” said Watkins. “There’s been a change of plan. The Captain and his wife will be staying as Sir Frederick’s guests tonight.” He pulled a few coins from his pocket and held them out to Ifan. “Here’s your pay. Take it and go; you shan’t be needed tonight.”</p><p>“...Oh,” said Ifan, taking the money with a nod and pocketing it. “Thank you. I’ll be off then.” He turned back to Nettie, taking her hand and kissing the back of it. “Always a pleasure to see you, Miss Allinson.”</p><p>She smiled. “Give my love to your sister and your mother.”</p><p>“I will.”</p><p>He watched, as Nettie hurried away from him under Watkins’s stern and watchful gaze, in the direction of the servants’ stair. Once she was gone, Watkins carried on watching Ifan for a fraction of a moment more, before turning to hurry away in the other direction across the courtyard.</p><p>Ifan shook his head, turning to the horses, addressing Delia again. “Well, he seemed in a mood. I wonder what that was about,” he said in Welsh. Of course, she didn’t reply, but nuzzled her face against his hand. Ifan gave her an indulgent smile, rooting around in his pocket and pulling out a rather wrinkled winter apple he’d grabbed from the barrel in the back room of the pub earlier, giving it to her to eat. “Oh, well,” he said, shrugging. “Time to go home, I suppose.”</p><hr/><p>Nettie was hurrying up the servant’s stair from the scullery, straightening her cap and apron and at the same time taking the steps two at a time so as to reach the dining room faster and not invite any more tellings off – she’d had quite enough upset for one night, thank you very much – when she heard the sound.</p><p>She froze on the small landing by one of the doors to the main house as she heard it. It was odd, indescribable, but instantly familiar to her; she’d heard it once before, after all, in the scullery earlier. It had come alongside that shifting golden light, the severed fingers falling to the floor.</p><p>And now there it was again, faint and muffled by the door by unmistakable. Nettie paused by the door, staring at the plainly white-painted grain of the below-stairs side of it; on the other side was above-stairs, the second floor corridor.</p><p>She hesitated, hand curling around the cast-iron door knob as she listened. She could hear someone out there, a soft thud and a shuffling followed by the sound of… no, she couldn’t make it out.</p><p>She could look, said some part of her. Just a peek, just to satisfy her curiosity. She’d done it enough times before, and she’d be on her way back to the dining room in no time. And she’d never tell a soul what she saw, of course: that went without saying.</p><p>And so, taking care to turn the knob slowly so it didn’t make a sound, Nettie opened the servants’ door just the smallest amount, and pressed her eye to the crack.</p><p>What she saw nearly made her gasp aloud, quickly hushing the sound so she wasn’t found out.</p><p>Because there was Watkins again, standing in front of the door of one of the guest bedrooms. He was carrying a body cradled in his arms; the body of a woman in a trailing green velvet evening dress, the dark hair pinned up on her head matted with the dark red of drying blood. Trails of it had dribbled down from her hairline, all the way down one side of face onto her neck. She seemed to be asleep or unconscious – or at least, Nettie very much <em>hoped</em> she was only unconscious – her head lolling backwards over his arm, one of her hands trailing almost to the ground.</p><p>Nettie watched, transfixed, as Watkins placed his burden down briefly on the carpet in front of the door and unlocked it with a key from the ring on his belt. Then he picked up the woman again, carrying her inside. For a moment, Nettie stood there paralysed with horror, fear for this poor lady and what the man might do to her. But before she could decide what to do – and she didn’t even question the idea that she’d have to do <em>something</em>, if only she could – he was walking back out again with empty arms, adjusting his cuffs fastidiously as he closed the door behind him. She watched him pause as he spotted a minute fleck of something – perhaps blood – on one of them, frowning as he inspected it and then pulling his jacket sleeve neatly over.</p><p>Then, he turned back to the bedroom door and locked it with his key. Still facing away from Nettie, he raised his hands in front of him and peered down at them, as though focusing on some object he was holding perhaps; with his back turned, though, Nettie couldn’t see what it was.</p><p>And then she nearly gasped again as she heard that sound once more, the strange, indescribable sound, accompanied by an expanding golden light. She stared, huge-eyed, as the light enveloped Watkins, growing so bright she could no longer see him at all and had to squeeze her eyes shut for a moment. Behind the blood-red glow of her eyelids, there was a bright flash, fading quickly as silence returned to the corridor.</p><p>Her heart in her mouth, Nettie opened her eyes, blinking and trying to understand what she was seeing.</p><p>The corridor was empty, and Watkins was gone.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Chapter 17</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <b>[Interlude – June 1884]</b>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>It was a beautiful day in early summer, when Charlotte’s life changed forever.</p><p>She remembered it vividly, later; the brightness of it, the way that the sky was such a crisp blue, arcing cloudlessly overhead for the first time in weeks. Their two families had gone to the Castle Green, bringing picnic hampers and plates and delicate crystal glasses to take advantage of the fine weather. Apparently many others had had the same idea; in the distance, Charlotte could see women walking in twos and threes, arm in arm as they perambulated, children running alongside the fountain, a young couple standing close to one another by the band stand.</p><p>There was a light breeze, and Charlotte was sitting a little away from her sisters and their friends all in wicker chairs, reading and watching the men play cricket on the lawn. She was wearing a wide-brimmed straw sunhat pinned to her hair, and a parasol leaning over one shoulder, keeping the sun off her, but even the air was warm, in the pleasant sort of way before summer truly took hold.</p><p>It was warm enough to wear the ivory lace summer dress she’d brought with her from London, for when the weather turned fairer. She’d been looking forward to it, and today had been the day. With her pale blue velvet sash and her delicate white lace gloves, Charlotte looked very pleasing indeed, even if she did say so herself. She had certainly been pleased by the way Frederick’s eyes had followed her as she stepped out into the light; when he looked at her like that, the prospect of marrying him seemed like it might be very agreeable indeed.</p><p>She smiled faintly, looking up from her book and back to the cricket match again. She watched her father bowl, Frederick batting, standing there with utter focused concentration, a brilliant figure in crisp cricket whites against the bright, sunlit green of the grass.</p><p>Frederick was the reason Charlotte was here, and indeed, the reason her family had rented the comfortable town house in Cardiff for the season; this was where Frederick’s Welsh mining interests were based and where his company’s offices were, and he spent more time in Wales than in London these days. Except when he came to visit Charlotte’s family, either in a professional capacity or a personal one, or more often both.</p><p>Her engagement to Frederick meant a great deal to her father, Charlotte knew. He’d already all but adopted Frederick as his protege and business partner, and they’d done so well together; it had been her father’s idea that Frederick involve himself in charitable works in London, and it had worked wonders to subsume those reprehensible rumours that he was treating the workers in his mines anything less than admirably. Indeed, now the rumours were that Frederick might be in for a knighthood in a few years; her father would have put in a good word with some of his old friends, she knew, which was jolly nice for all concerned.</p><p>And so really, as her father’s eldest daughter, it had been fairly inevitable that it would be Frederick that Charlotte would marry. Indeed, she was rather glad it was Frederick; of all the eminent men her father knew, he was at least one of the cleverer ones, and was not dull like some of the other men of business that had dined with their family when she was growing up; Charlotte had always dreaded the prospect of being obliged to marry one of them one day. Frederick, by contrast, had a good head for things that were interesting, an amateur interest in science and engineering, and connections to match.</p><p>And best of all, he seemed to appreciate a woman who found joy and fascination in such things too. Charlotte knew she shouldn’t take this for granted; some men would balk at the idea that their wife enjoyed tinkering with mechanical components as much as she did reading or singing or mingling in high society.</p><p>Not that Charlotte didn’t enjoy those things either; her father had made sure to give her and her sisters the best educations that may be found for modern young ladies, sparing no expense to have them tutored in French, German, Latin, Greek and the classics, Literature, Music and Dance, Mathematics, Philosophy, Geography, Astronomy, Economics, and the basic principles of Engineering as befit the daughter of a man who was fascinated by it, and by what more mechanical wonders this modern age might bring forth. And indeed, the future wife of another such man. All in all, Charlotte was an extremely accomplished young woman and she knew it, and knew she would have wasted away locked up in the Welsh mountains with nothing to occupy her mind.</p><p>As things stood though, she was rather pleased by her plans for the future; a workshop of her own, perhaps adjoining to Frederick’s. A library of books by the great scientific minds of the day, who might also grace their parlour for scintillating conversation now and then. It was a life that would suit her quite well, she thought, distracted from her book by the imagining of it once again.</p><p>Charlotte was broken out of her thoughts as she shivered a bit. A slight breeze was rising, stirring her parasol and her hat. She frowned, laying down her book – the second volume of Maxwell’s <em>A treatise on electricity and magnetism</em>, both volumes of which Frederick had given her as an engagement present – spine up on the picnic blanket at her feet. She turned around and peered behind her, into the small copse of trees a little way off.</p><p>She frowned, as a flicker of movement caught her eye. At first she thought she’d imagined it – perhaps it had been a trick of the light? But as soon as she’d had that thought, there it was again. This time she was able to get a better look at it, glimmering in the shade amongst the sparse trees; a kind of hazy gold, shifting slightly like a gauze curtain in the breeze.</p><p>Charlotte got to her feet, folding her parasol and leaving it on the blanket, the wind tugging a little at her dress and hat.</p><p>“Charlotte?”</p><p>She blinked, seeing her youngest sister at her side, tugging at her skirt.</p><p>“Annabelle… what’s the matter?”</p><p>“Where are you going?”</p><p>“For a stroll,” said Charlotte, twitching her skirts out of Annabelle’s hand firmly. “I’ll be back presently.”</p><p>“Can I come?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“All right,” said Annabelle with a slight pout, returning to her book. “But don’t go getting lost. Or kidnapped.”</p><p>Charlotte laughed. “It’s not exactly a deep, dark forest, Belle. There are no monsters or criminals in it, I’m almost certain.”</p><p>But her sister had already lost interest.</p><p>And so Charlotte began to walk towards the trees, the wind growing stronger now; here and there, it felt warm again, warmer than the surrounding air of the summer day. Other times, though, there was a gust of colder breeze, a very odd sensation.</p><p>That golden light was still there too, a swaying curtain as she approached it through the trees. It reminded her of the illustration of the Aurora Borealis in one of her books; it had been one of her favourite colour plates when she was a child, and had always made her idly dream of becoming a polar explorer, seeing strange new worlds and charting their icy wildernesses.</p><p>But this was something Charlotte hadn’t seen before. For a while she just stood between the trees, staring at it in fascination; it looked like a golden fissure or a tear, extending about twenty feet from end to end in the small clearing amidst the trees. It was almost soundless, save for a very soft rustling, whispering sound as it shifted. For a moment, Charlotte just watched it, her heart in her mouth. She was aware that as a scientist, she should be being analytical about this, investigating it properly. But for a moment she just stood there, transfixed by how beautiful it was.</p><p>Still, she came back to her rational senses quickly. She wanted to touch it, wondering if her hand would pass right through – in which case it might be some new optical phenomenon – or whether it had mass, solidity.</p><p>She raised her lace-gloved hand, finding the rippling glow all around it pleasantly warm; it tingled slightly, as she experimentally moved her fingers through the golden light.</p><p>Charlotte smiled, encouraged by this to move her hand to the centre of the light, the part that looked like a fissure. Would it feel the same? Charlotte gasped; it was warmer, and tingled a little more than before, but that was not the reason for her surprise.</p><p>No, that was because her hand had gone through it, and had not appeared on the other side. She drew it back hastily, turning it this way and that and staring at her fingers; everything seemed exactly the same. Steeling herself with the excitement of exploration kindling in her veins now the initial shock had worn off, she raised her hand again.</p><p>The same thing happened. Her hand passed easily through the shining golden fissure, but instead of appearing on the other side, it seemed to pass through into some space beyond, that she could not see.</p><p>She was frowning, trying to think what this might mean and how it could be possible, when the fissure began to shudder and widen, the air around it rippling. A little alarmed, Charlotte hastily withdrew her hand and took a step back, the wind off it tugging at her dress and hat as she watched the glow brighten.</p><p>Just as she was about to turn and flee for fear of an explosion, something fell from it, glowing and crackling with sparks, onto the ground below. A moment later, the fissure of light shuddered, convulsed, and the sealed itself up again, disappearing in a final flash of gold.</p><p>Or not quite final, Charlotte realised, as she stared down at the object it had deposited, smoking gently in the grass in the middle of the clearing. She had no idea what it was – some kind of machine part? Though not any kind she recognised – but it was clearly half-broken, sending off showers of sparks. Yet it was also haloed in that strange golden glow, as though it had absorbed it from the fissure itself; it had the same shimmering quality about it, despite the comparative weakness of the nimbus surrounding it.</p><p>Not that she had any idea what <em>it</em> was. She knelt down beside it – heedless of grass stains to her dress – and extended a hand to touch it gingerly. It appeared to be a metal cylinder around three feet long, and about as wide again, with concentric smaller cylinders inside, and rings of some sort of material that Charlotte thought might be a form of stone, or ceramic. Parts of the outer casing had been sheared away as though by some massive force, but she could see small polygonal nodes of the same material, glowing bright with the golden light as though it had caught on them and gathered there.</p><p>Charlotte’s mind was already whirring, dissecting it; could those nodes be some kind of conductor array? It put her in mind of lodestones and magnetic fields, or perhaps of electrical coils, though this golden light was like no electric discharge she had ever seen or heard of. She had the idea the object was meant to slide apart somehow, but she didn’t want to start disassembling it just yet. It was very warm to the touch, but not quite too hot to keep her gloved hand on. She jumped a little as sparks shot out the other side of it, though those and the glow seemed to have largely subsided now.</p><p>“Charlotte?!? Charlotte! Oh thank God! Here you are!”</p><p>She whirled at the sound of the voice behind her; in her fascination, she’d almost forgotten she’d probably been gone for some time. She smiled, relaxing as she saw Frederick in his cricket whites, standing there with a warm, relieved smile on his face.</p><p>“My dear, whatever are you doing here?” he asked. “Annabelle said–”</p><p>“Look!” she interrupted, stepping to the side and pointing so he could see the object on the ground. “Look at this! It just fell out of the air!”</p><p>He looked, and his eyes widened, kneeling down for a closer look. “Gosh. Whatever is it?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” said Charlotte, kneeling down again beside him, a slow smile spreading across her face as she laid her hand on the metal once more. “But I’m very much looking forward to finding out.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0018"><h2>18. Chapter 18</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Despite everything, Jack had been happy enough following Ianto along the tunnel; they’d spoken a bit as they walked, and the more they did, the more he found himself growing to like him, and indeed, to trust him against his better judgement. Some part of Jack knew he should know better by now than to trust so easily, to let his guard down just because some handsome young thing claimed to be a time-traveler who knew him in the future. The old “<em>I need your help to preserve </em><em>your</em><em> future, but I can’t tell you </em><em>details </em><em>because it’ll disturb the timeline</em>” was a classic con in some circles, and Jack should know.</p><p>Even the fact that Ianto seemed to genuinely care about him should be a red flag, Jack thought. Sometimes people pretended to, but no one really did; not in so long, and even the people who once had were gone. Or maybe they’d never cared as much as he’d thought after all. Yet even that was the good scenario. Most people didn’t care at all.</p><p>Except, thought Jack, <em>most</em> people would have given up the pretense and just shot him by now. Or stabbed, drugged, electrocuted, concussed, or otherwise incapacitated him, depending on personal preference. The fact that Ianto had staunchly refused to harm him, wouldn’t even fight back when Jack threatened him earlier – and he was starting to feel a little bit guilty for that – left Jack rather blindsided.</p><p>That, and the fact that he <em>liked</em> Ianto, he was finding. Obviously Ianto was attractive, that much was a given. But it wasn’t just that. He was also fiercely competent and compassionate at the same time, a combination which Jack was well aware of his own weakness for. That, and the fact that he really <em>was</em> attractive. The way those eyes glittered with humour, the quirk of his pretty mouth. The way the fabric of his trousers – clearly made to fit someone a good bit smaller – stretched tight across his upper thighs and the quite delightful curve of his arse as he walked in front of Jack in the tunnel, and–</p><p>“–<em>Jack</em>. Did you hear what I just said?”</p><p>Jack blinked, drawing his gaze up as Ianto turned, not seeing much point in trying to disguise his scrutiny. He smiled apologetically. “Was it ‘<em>eyes front soldier’</em>?”</p><p>“What?” he saw Ianto blush a little. “No!”</p><p>“Oh, thank God. That would’ve been a tragedy.”</p><p>Ianto pulled himself together quickly, and rolled his eyes. “I was about to tell you there’s a fork in the path coming up ahead. Now, I <em>really</em> can’t recommend going up into the castle...”</p><p>“Oh, yeah,” said Jack, frowning. “But you can’t tell me why.”</p><p>“No,” said Ianto shortly, not rising to the bait.</p><p>“So what it comes down to is you asking me to trust you. Again.”</p><p>“Unfortunately, yes.”</p><p>They both fell silent for a while after that, Jack thinking through possibilities as he followed a little way behind Ianto.</p><p>At last the tunnel ended. At the end, with no other way to go, were some stairs, a spiral taking them upwards. When they reached the top, they found themselves in a sort of hallway room built of stone slabs, with more stairs to their right, leading upwards. On the opposite wall from the door they’d come in was another door.</p><p>“Which way?” said Jack.</p><p>He watched, vaguely fascinated, as Ianto chewed his lip thoughtfully; Ianto had a lovely mouth, Jack found himself thinking once again. Small but soft and expressive, good for smirks and adorable frowns, sharp wit in that soft accent of his. And a very good mouth to kiss, as he’d found out earlier. Probably equally good for other things too. Jack would very much like to kiss him again at the very least, and then with any luck, once this was over–</p><p>“Not up,” declared Ianto.</p><p>Jack blinked, startled unceremoniously out of his pleasant imaginings yet again. “Um, What?”</p><p>Ianto sighed, looking like he knew exactly what was going through Jack’s mind. “Not up,” he repeated patiently. “We should take the opposite door.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Up is the castle,” said Ianto.</p><p>“How do you know?”</p><p>“...The castle is high up on the mountain. As far as I know it’s the only thing up there. It’s an informed guess.”</p><p>“Fair enough. And you don’t want to go to the castle because of...” he saw Ianto look pained, in that way he’d been doing on and off all evening. “Very important reasons you can’t tell me, I guess.”</p><p>“Good guess.”</p><p>Jack sighed. There was something about this, something that made him uneasy, and – quite apart from the other reasons he wanted to stick with Ianto and see where the evening took them – he really didn’t want to let him go just yet. This was the kind of situation that other people ended up dead at the end of. Not him, of course, or at least not permanently.</p><p>But there were other things, Jack had quickly realised, that hurt as much as dying, other pains that could last much longer.</p><p>“So,” said Jack, leading the way to the other door. But Ianto barred his way, opening the door a crack first; it was not locked. Whatever he saw on the other side seemed to satisfy him, because he drew back a moment later, opening the door for Jack and gesturing him through.</p><p>“Such a gentleman,” said Jack, throwing Ianto a grin; for his pains, he received an eyeroll but also a slight, amused smile, so he counted that as a win.</p><p>On the other side was another staircase stretching down, and at the bottom was a single door.</p><p>He exchanged a glance with Ianto, who had got out his scanner and was holding it up. It was oddly warm here, especially compared to the tunnel below and indeed, the frosty December night outside. He hadn’t quite noticed until now, but it had started to skirt the very edge of uncomfortable in his thick wool coat and his layers underneath.</p><p>There was also a deep, thrumming vibration all around them; Jack might have ascribed it to the waterfall – whose constant rumble he could also feel, all around him – but there was something else too, he thought. Something more rhythmic, artificial, a pulse just a little slower than his accelerating heartbeat as they made their way down the stairs.</p><p>“These energy readings,” Ianto said, as they walked. “I’ve never seen anything like this, except maybe...”</p><p>“What?” said Jack, holding his own monitor up. Sure enough, the brass needle was swinging wildly around the dial as the energy field fluctuated; Ianto’s digital monitor had reached saturation point, the data trace fluctuating and regularly spiking off the scale. “Have you seen something like this before?”</p><p>“Maybe. No. ...It’s nothing,” said Ianto, shaking his head with a frown.</p><p>“Helpful,” said Jack, as they reached the door at the bottom of the staircase. Unlike the one at the top of the stairs, this was another heavy cast-iron blast door, closed and locked. He pressed his ear against it, even as Ianto inspected the lock.</p><p>He could hear through it, just about, the sounds muffled but present; very faint voices – though he couldn’t hear what they were saying – backed by the sound of machines, the clunking and whirring of some sort of great engine.</p><p>And then, another sound, so sudden and tearing that Jack drew back in startled alarm. An agonised scream, coming from beyond the door. Ianto flinched backwards too, his eyes widening in obvious recognition and blank-eyed horror. They could hear words now, sort of; a voice, begging for mercy. <br/><br/>“No, no, please… stop. I can help you, I can…. Ahhhh! It <em>hurts!</em> Please, <em>please</em> stop…. please… no…. <em>no!</em>”</p><p>Jack opened his mouth and closed it again, as the screams were rapidly stifled, falling silent.</p><p>Because Jack recognised that voice, just as he was now sure Ianto did.</p><p>It was his own.</p><hr/><p>Gwen’s consciousness returned slowly, in fragments. The first thing she was aware of was acute pain; her head throbbed nauseatingly, her vision blurring into focus as she shifted, trying to lessen the pain in her limbs.</p><p>It was then that she realised she tied to a chair, and that there was a cloth gag stuffed in her mouth and tied securely, keeping her from yelling for help.</p><p>Not that she didn’t feel like yelling; she suddenly remembered what had happened, and felt terror lance through her all over again as she saw once more Jack falling before her, felt the explosion of pain as some heavy object connected with her head. Sure enough, her left eye felt glued half closed, with what could only be dried blood.</p><p>And now she was here, in an unfamiliar room, bound and helpless and quite possibly with a concussion. She snarled infectually against her gag, struggling against the bonds on her wrists and ankles, but it was no good; whoever had tied them knew how to do it securely.</p><p>Instead, Gwen took the opportunity to look at her surroundings. She couldn’t see much – the chair she was tied to had been placed facing the wall in the corner – but if she pushed through the pain splitting her skull and craned her neck as far around as it would go, she could gather that she was in a bedroom, with a table and a basin of water and a neatly made four-poster bed. It didn’t look very lived-in; there was no fire in the stone hearth and it looked like nothing had been touched in a while. It had the air of a guest room about it.</p><p>Well, Gwen supposed she was technically a guest. The thought made her chuckle bitterly, as she remembered how only a few hours ago she and Jack had dined with Carrington in the hall.</p><p>Or at least she assumed it had only been a few hours. She frowned – wincing at the pain it sent through her skull – as she realised she didn’t actually know how long it had been. It seemed to be dark outside, but the heavy brocade curtains were pulled fully across the windows and she couldn’t see anything of the sky outside. She felt tears come to her eyes, as she thought of Jack and Ianto; whether they were alright, whether they needed her. Whether they were looking for her.</p><p>And Rhys, back in her own time. In theory, Gwen knew that if they were able to get back – and admittedly, that was a big if – then there was no reason he should be kept waiting. They’d just be able to return to the moment they’d left, and for Rhys is would be like she’d never been away. But it didn’t feel like that. Gwen missed Rhys acutely enough that she felt it like an almost physical pain in her chest.</p><p>But with the pain came new resolve. She wasn’t about to just sit here waiting for someone to come rescue her. She was going to get back to her husband if it killed her, and on the way she was going to make sure her two best friends got out safely too. The last thing she’d seen of Jack was him getting shot, which meant he was surely in danger. And it wasn’t only for his sake; she’d promised Ianto she’d keep Jack out of trouble, and she meant to keep that promise.</p><p>Gwen began to struggle again against her bonds determinedly, rocking the chair sideways so it almost tipped and growling in frustration. She was sure they’d have taken her gun and anything else she’d had on her, but if she could just free one of her hands, she could get the busk from her corset with the hidden knife inside; indeed, she could feel its rigidity against the front of her chest, giving her hope that that at least had been able to pass unnoticed. At least then she’d hopefully be able to cut through the tight cords binding her ankles, and even have something with which to defend herself if she had to fight her way out.</p><p>The problem was getting it. She hissed with growing frustration, as she rocked on her chair, making the ropes rub her skin and her head fill with blinding pain once more.</p><p>Gwen was just about to yell out in anger from from behind the gag, when she heard a sound behind her. The scrape of keys in the lock, and the quiet opening of the door.</p><p>Gwen craned around once more, freezing in place; she’d be completely at the mercy of her captor like this, she knew.</p><p>Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a figure standing in the doorway, staring back at her. A young woman in a maid’s uniform, smoothing down her apron with nervous hands. Indeed, Gwen thought as she twisted her neck just a little further, everything about the woman’s posture spoke of anxiety.</p><p>Nevertheless, she cleared her throat determinedly, speaking in a London accent. “Hello, Ma’am. Beg pardon, but, um, I can’t help thinking you need assistance.”</p><p>Gwen nodded eagerly, trying to make as much affirmative noise as she could from behind her gag. Whoever this was, she wasn’t going to waste this chance of a reprieve.</p><p>The woman seemed emboldened by this; Gwen saw her take a big breath and square her shoulders as though gathering her courage, looking back out into the corridor once then closing the door behind her, stepping soundlessly into Gwen’s field of view.</p><p>She peered down at Gwen’s face and Gwen saw she was perhaps in her early twenties, short and pretty with flyaway dark curls starting to escape her linen cap. She blinked at Gwen with soft, nervous brown eyes.</p><p>“My name’s Annette. Um, Nettie, they call me mostly. I work in the kitchens,” she said, as she reached behind Gwen’s head and started to undo the cloth gag with trembling fingers. “Ifan told me about you, down in the courtyard. You and your husband the Captain.” She frowned, struggling a little bit with the knot. “I dunno why Sir Frederick and Mister Watkins would do this to you. I dunno know who you are, really. But no one deserves what they did to you. It’s not right.” The linen strip came away and Nettie stood back, hands neatly behind her back. “So, um, if it please you Ma’am... I’m here to help.”</p>
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<a name="section0019"><h2>19. Chapter 19</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Additional warning for torture and some fairly dark themes in this chapter.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jack gasped back to life, his skull throbbing with fierce pain as his head ricocheted back against something hard. He gritted his teeth, bracing himself for the next wave of aching nausea; it was always like that after he’d died by headshot, the feeling of it lingering.</p><p>It was as he was shifting, trying to ease the pressure, that he realised his arms and legs were bound, his body strapped down to something.</p><p>Dreading what he’d see, he opened his eyes to a flood of light, then hastily closed them again as it dazzled him, making his head pulse nauseatingly. The blood glow behind his eyelids was almost too much, still too bright, and suddenly he realised it was sweltering hot. Though perhaps that was only because of the way his body felt so tender and oversensitised. Like he was burning with fever, every nerve giving him too much input, along with his aching head from where he’d been shot. He felt the very air was full of static charge, a strong chemical smell and something like hot metal heavy in his nose.</p><p>He opened his eyes again after another moment, more tentatively this time.</p><p>The room itself was circular, almost hemispherical in fact, a high, vaulted dome of brick. It almost resembled the Hub, if only in the scale of it and the sturdy Victorian industrial feeling to the architecture. But it seemed to be kitted out as a lab, filled with workbenches and machines in various states of assembly, rolls of copper wire and engine parts sitting everywhere there was room.</p><p>Except not in the middle of the space. In the middle, in pride of place, was a vast machine, a kind of cylindrical piston placed within a thick vertical glass tube atop a stone platform built solidly into the foundations. The glass tube was the width of a person, perhaps a little more, and within it were several concentric tubes, covered in embedded metal wiring. At the top the piston was moving up and down, capped by a device that looked like a series of concentric metal cylinders, covered in angular ceramic nodes.</p><p>The whole thing was sparking and boiling with glowing golden light, swirling and popping in the air around it, so bright it almost hurt to look at, leaving blazing imprints on his retinas. Jack’s mouth dropped open, as he recognised that light immediately; well, that explained the Rift energy field they’d been picking up around the whole area. <em>Popcorny</em>, he thought, remembering Ianto’s words with a pang. This certainly fit the bill.</p><p><em>But how</em>… Jack frowned, as he realised something else. The way it was powered was clear enough; from a hole in the apex of the dome extended three vast pistons, moving ceaselessly, driving three huge wheels that powered the strange cylinder of metal and glass below. Immediately, his mind went back to the vast turbine wheels he’d seen above, over the waterfall; he’d wondered idly then what they were powering.</p><p>Well, now it seemed he had his answer.</p><p>Not that it was much of an answer; it didn’t explain why Jack was here at all, or why he was strapped to some sort of welded metal frame, on a wooden platform just beside the based of the machine. From his position – and there was some sort of clamp or iron band around his forehead, holding his head in place and making it difficult to see very far to either side – he could see thick rubber-covered cables like telegraph wires, snaking off in every direction, and something that looked like a bank of brass switches and controls to one side, though he couldn’t discern anything more.</p><p>“Ah, I see you are taken with my experiments. It is the mark of a great man, I have always thought, to resourcefully make use of what the environment provides to its fullest extent,” said a voice, just out of Jack’s eyeline. A moment later, Carrington stepped into view, peering dispassionately down at Jack from behind the controls. “The world contains very many wonders, all marching to the tune of the laws of physics. The Sun shines down upon us and propels the winds, the ocean currents, the rivers like the one that thunders over our very heads. Mankind spreads across the globe, inventing clever ways to extract power and put it to use; coal may be dug up from the ground by willing hands and burned, its energy alchemised to other forms, sound, heat, light, <em>motion</em>...” he gestured all around him. “But not perpetual motion. That much has been proven. All things, be they living or inert, tend towards entropy in the end.” He stood in front of Jack with his hands clasped behind his back. “So you can imagine, Captain Harkness, that when a man such as myself hears a tale of a man who cannot die, then he might be interested in acquiring such a fascinating specimen, and testing the veracity of the tale.”</p><p>And with that, he pushed up a lever, causing a generator behind Jack to whir, the air to fill with static electricity that lifted Jack’s hair, <em>before</em>...</p><p>Jack screamed as an electric shock ripped through his body, bruising his limbs and back against the frame he was strapped to as he convulsed. When it ended – after what felt like an eternity but was probably only a few seconds – he hung limply, trying to get his scrambled thoughts back in order.</p><p>“Fascinating,” said Carrington, as placidly as though he was commenting on the weather. “That level of current would have killed an ordinary man. Perhaps there is some truth to the stories of your resilience. However, I am not a credulous man by nature, and resilience is not the same as immortality, despite your apparent ability to rebound from a gunshot to the skull. Let us try a little more.”</p><p>Again, he pushed up the lever; this time it was worse, and Jack felt tears come to his eyes.</p><p>“No, no, please… stop. I can help you, I can…. Ahhhh! It <em>hurts!</em> Please, <em>please</em> stop…. please… no…. <em>no!</em>” Jack slumped forward as far as the bonds would allow, breathing hard; his sleeves had been rolled up, his shirt undone at the top, and there were electrodes attached to his wrists, chest, and temples with rubberised tape. He raised his head, staring up with fury in his eyes. “I can help you!” he growled. “And I know you’re not gonna accept it. But I do want you to remember I said that, because when I tear down your cruel little empire, I want you to remember that there was <em>another way</em>. Whatever it is you want, I could have <em>help</em><em>ed</em><em> you</em>.”</p><p>“Help me?” said Carrington, with an eerie echo of his cheerfulness from before. “Oh, you’ll do that Captain, that’s for certain.”</p><p>Jack seethed, ignoring this. “Where am I? Where’s Gwen?” he spat, struggling to no avail. “What the hell is that thing you’ve built?” It looked for all the world like a clunky prototype of the rift manipulator. But that was impossible… wasn’t it? “You shouldn’t have that kind of technology! No one should… <em>yet</em>.” Even Torchwood didn’t, he thought. Though now he thought about it, when <em>had</em> Torchwood acquired the rift manipulator? It had to be around this time, perhaps a little later… Jack had barely skimmed the files when he’d become director, there’d been so much to try to get to grips with to run the place on his own, and besides, he’d cared more about whether the thing actually worked than its history. Likewise, he hadn’t been paying much attention at the time either. In his early days at Torchwood he had hardly spent enough time in the Hub to accurately place the memories; he’d always been glad to see the back of the place after Emily gave him his pay for each mission.</p><p>“Ah, my dear Charlotte’s pet project,” said Carrington, gazing up at it with a strange expression on his face. “Don’t worry, I daresay you’ll become acquainted with its workings in good time,” said Carrington, with a faint, cold smile, the slight quirk of one pale eyebrow. “As to <em>your</em> wife, she is quite safe,” he said, frowning slightly. “Though, I will have some questions for her when she regains consciousness; chief among them who she really is. As to whether she truly is your wife, I have my doubts. None of the research I conducted indicated you were married, which I must say, had me rather surprised when you came to my door with a lady upon your arm. It’s enough to make one rather suspicious! Still, it’s of no real consequence. I have what I wanted, after all.”</p><p>“And what’s that?!” he hissed, baring his teeth. “To electrocute me… why? For fun? Because you get off on it?” he laughed bitterly. “You wouldn’t be the first.”</p><p>Carrington turned to him, narrowing his eyes in a sudden flash of white-hot rage that would have had Jack drawing back if he wasn’t so thoroughly pinned. But then, as quickly as it had come, the anger ebbed away; Carrington seemed to be able to easily master his feelings, but Jack couldn’t miss the boil of suppressed anger that lay not far beneath the surface.</p><p>“Not precisely. I am a man of science, Captain. It is a wondrous engine, the human body,” said Carrington placidly, walking across the lab to a rack of wire-frame armature constructions, running his hand through the air around one aerial and making the needles on the bank of instruments in front of them shudder. “Electric currents may bring animation...” he crossed the lab in a few quick strides, picked up another electrode and applied it to Jack’s arm. He turned to his left and a smaller dial of some kind that Jack could only just make out in his peripheral vision; immediately though, it became clear enough for Jack as he felt an electric shock to his arm, making it twitch and spasm uncontrollably. Though this shock had been comparatively minor, Jack’s body shuddered involuntarily within his bonds, leaving him gasping before the current was switched off. Jack slumped down, biting back a sob as Carrington turned to his workbench, noting something down in a leather-bound notebook. “Or,” he continued, almost conversationally, “they may also extinguish life.”</p><p>Jack knew what was coming then, a mere half a moment before it happened.</p><p>“Please, no...” he moaned, but even as he said it, Carrington had dialled up the current again, making his body spasm and convulse, every single nerve alight before–</p><p><em>Darkness</em>.</p><p>He gasped back to life with his face still wet with tears, the smell of burning and hot metal in his nose again as Carrington’s face loomed in his vision. “But, it seems, not for you,” he said, looking extremely pleased with himself. “So, it seems that Miss Holroyd spoke the truth in one regard; you really do appear to defy the laws that govern all living things upon this earth.”</p><p>“Miss Holroyd?” said Jack, starting in confused alarm at his former boss’s name. “<em>Emily</em> Holroyd? What does she have to do with any of this?”</p><p>“Why, Miss Holroyd is my contact at Torchwood,” he said, as pleasantly as though he was discussing the weather. “Not nearly as secret as I expected, for an organisation that affects to live in shadow and rumour only. It was simple enough to negotiate with her; she was very interested in the relics of my dear Charlotte’s experiments. So, we negotiated. My price was you. And here you are.”</p><p>Jack blinked, horrified; the fact that Emily would sell him off to be tortured was one thing, but the fact that he apparently remembered nothing of all this was almost worse.</p><p>Still, he had bigger problems right now, he knew.</p><p>“What do you want with me?” snarled Jack.</p><p>“What do I want with you? Why, <em>Captain Harkness</em><span>,</span> I must say I’m surprised you had to ask,” he said. He came up right in front of Jack, taking his chin in his hand and turning him this way and that. “What are you really, hmm?”</p><p>Jack snarled at him. “I am human!”</p><p>He sighed, almost patiently. “I am a scientist, Captain, and a collector of things unique in all the world. I keep an ear turned to rumours of strange phenomena. Torchwood is a well-known name to those who move in the right circles, and it’s often said in the same sentence as another name...” he smiled. “Yours. There have been rumours of a man about Cardiff who couldn’t die for some time now, and as a man of reason I simply had to see for myself. All logical principles, not to mention the laws of thermodynamics, state that such a thing simply may not exist. Yet I think you and I both know that there are more things in this world than may be dreamed up by those great men of academia. If power can be extracted from you – from the surge as your blood begins to flow again after a death, or perhaps your nerves and brain enervated by electricity – one might generate more current then one puts in. A net gain, in other words. A veritable perpetual motion machine. If it could be replicated–”</p><p>“It can’t!” said Jack. “I swear, I am one of a kind.”</p><p>“Oh, I am aware,” said Carrington, more softly. “You are rather unique, which is why I am so lucky to have you. Let us say, I have rather a point to prove, and have done for some years. I hope that you will be the one who may bring me victory in this intellectual dispute.”</p><p>“<em>Intellectual</em>...” he was almost incandescent with rage. “This is all about some argument? With who?!?”</p><p>But Carrington ignored this and continued to speak, as though Jack had said nothing at all. “Still, I think the details of the tale of Captain Harkness, the man who can never die, will require a little further empirical verification.”</p><p>“<em>No!</em>” screamed Jack, but it was too late. Once again, Carrington shocked him, sending him spasming and striking his head against the steel brace, though unfortunately for him he was pinned to tightly to knock himself unconscious before the current lighting up his nervous system caused his heart to fail.</p><p>He came back with a gasp, muscles aching and burning with residual pain. He could feel bruises where the steel bonds cut into his wrists, bruises on top of bruises and burns too. Though they were already healing, it was bringing things back, causing the sense memories of being chained up on a ship for a year to crash back over him. Those, and memories of being hung from a ceiling in a basement and cut with butcher’s knives to make him bleed. Buried underground, dying by suffocation over and over because of a mistake he’d made so long ago. It would always be so, Jack thought miserably; as long as he was the way he was, there would always be people who would kill him repeatedly out of curiosity, out of rage, or just for fun. He let out a sad little whimper, involuntary and pained; he felt a sudden stab of longing to have Ianto here, his arms around him, stroking through his hair and gentling him as Jack healed.</p><p>But Ianto wasn’t here this time, Jack reminded himself. And that was a good thing. Ianto was safest down in the village, far away from all this, and from any possibility of being the one who was causally doomed by the historical record.</p><p>Yet still, Jack found he missed Ianto’s arms around him. He was finding this more and more these days, which was equal parts bittersweet and frightening. Because as comforting as it was to become accustomed to being held through those primal moments of terror of being dragged back into the living world, he knew it wasn’t something that would last forever. He knew that the familiarity of it would only hurt more once it was taken away, sooner or later, the preemptive dread of loss casting a pall over even his moments of joy.</p><p>And here he was again, alone with his pain. A taste of things to come perhaps, but one Jack had hoped to delay as much as he could.</p><p>“Interesting,” Carrington was saying, raising a lever; Jack heard the generator whir behind his head again, bracing himself for another shock. “Very interesting indeed.” He picked up a notebook and started to scribble in it. “No pulse or breathing for some fifteen minutes this time. Then you return to life with a spontaneous convulsion, accompanied by transient surge in capacitance across the flesh. And each time would seem to confirm the tale’s truth, but what, then, does that mean?” he said, tapping his pencil on the paper, talking more to himself than to Jack. A moment later, his face hardened, leaning down over Jack like he was an insect pinned to one of the boards upstairs.</p><p>“Who are you?” said Carrington, face inches from Jack’s, scrutinising him.</p><p>“I told you,” snarled Jack. “I’m Captain Jack Harkness.”</p><p>“Quite possibly, but your name is a triviality. ...Though, that’s not to say I did not have my doubts, earlier. Did you know, I received a most interesting telegram, just as you were arriving at my door. Constable Roberts down in the village informed me that Captain Jack Harkness was at that moment in the Foxhole Inn, in the company of one Mister Ianto Jones. Now if <em>you</em> are Captain Jack Harkness, then would you please do me the courtesy of explaining to me how that could be possible?”</p><p>Jack tried to suppress his flinch of recognition and worry at the sound of Ianto’s name. “No idea,” he said, trying for insolent rather than terrified. “Could be a coincidence.” He grinned a little maniacally. “The other one could be an imposter. Bet he’s not as hot as – <em>rgh</em><em>hhh!</em>” he screamed, as Carrington sent another jolt of electricity through him.</p><p>“Well, it’s of little matter. After all, I have my prize it seems,” said Carrington. “But I confess, your companions interest me; I’ve had my capable Mister Watkins go after your apparent double and this Mister Jones, so sooner or later I daresay the truth will out.” Another push of the lever, another shock.</p><p>“Ah! Why are you <em>doing</em> this?!?”</p><p>“I am a scientist, Captain Harkness,” said Carrington. “Since your word has already been shown to be worth nothing, I turned to empirical proof. And that, as you may know, requires <em>repetition</em>.”</p><p>“Not like this!” shouted Jack, unable to contain himself. “I’ve seen the consequences of science without humanity, without ethics. It’s been the reason for some of the worst horrors the human race ever brought upon itself! The twentieth century is just around the corner, and <em>then</em> you’ll understand!” he gritted his teeth, tears flowing down his face. “You can’t just treat me like a lab rat! I am <em>human!</em>”</p><p>“Are you?” Carrington smiled, fascinated. “Are you <em>really?</em>”</p><p>“<em>Yes!</em>” Jack thought of Ianto, thought of his unerring belief in Jack’s humanity. He flinched as he saw Carrington go for the handle again. “No, no <em>please</em>… <em>aahh!</em>”</p><p>Once again, all went black for a while.</p><p>When Jack gasped back to life, the frame was angled differently, so he was closer to sitting up instead of lying down. Though of course he was still securely bound with metal bonds, he realised as he tried to flex his aching muscles, his body still tingling unpleasantly with the fading sense memory of the electrocution.</p><p>And there was Carrington again, standing at the base of the glowing golden machine. “I think,” he said, “that that is sufficient verification.” He turned to Jack, arms spread wide and expansive, jacket off and shirt sleeves rolled up with the heat of the room. He was sheened with sweat, but looked extremely pleased with himself. “Well, Captain Harkness,” he said. “It’s my pleasure to inform you I have confirmed my hypothesis. You truly are what they say you are. And what a wondrous entity that is.”</p><p>“Thanks,” snarled Jack, filled with a sarcastic bite. “What’re you gonna do, use me to win your little argument?”</p><p>“Among other things,” said Carrington, stepping onto the stairs to Jack’s platform and picking up a few black rubberised cables, as thick as Jack’s wrist. He brought them down to screw the ends into brass ports on the side of the strange cylindrical machine, and returned to the switch board once more. “But first, I will need to get the attention of someone who was once very dear to me. And, indeed, still is, though perhaps my feelings are no longer wholly reciprocated.”</p><p>“Oh, wonder why, when you’re such a charmer?” Jack snorted. “Who is it?”</p><p>Carrington looked him in the eye, his gaze burning cold. “Why, it is my wife of course. Charlotte.”</p><p>And with that he threw a switch, and Jack’s vision shattered to pain and blackness.</p>
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<a name="section0020"><h2>20. Chapter 20</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jack and Ianto listened to the muted screams coming through the door for a moment, before they were abruptly silenced entirely.</p><p>In the sickening hush that followed, Jack glared at Ianto. Before Ianto could react, he found himself being shoved up against the wall of the corridor, Jack pressing his forearm to Ianto’s throat hard, the muzzle of his gun cold and angular where it pressed against his ribcage.</p><p>“<em>Why</em> didn’t you tell me about this before?”</p><p>“Well, first of all I didn’t know! Do you think I wouldn’t be right in there trying to stop this happening to you, if I’d known?”</p><p>“Apparently I don’t know <em>what</em> you’d do,” snarled Jack. “...And for that matter, if you care so much about me, don’t you think the fact that <em>I’m here twice</em> would be a useful piece of information to share? I thought you said you trusted me?”</p><p>“I was erring on the side of caution!” retorted Ianto. “You knowing too much about your own future could disrupt the timeline!”</p><p>“<em>Ha</em>. You know what would really disrupt the timeline? Me meeting myself!” Jack made a noise of frustration, letting Ianto go with a rough shove and starting to pace. His tone had turned sarcastic and biting in his anger, but though Jack hid it well, Ianto could hear the fear underneath. “In the time agency it was one thing to cross your own timeline, a fully functional vortex manipulator can get you out of that kind of scrape and we had paradox clean up crews to deal with the messy bits, but <em>this</em>...” Jack shook his head. “You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”</p><p>“If I don’t know, then it’s because you never told me!” Ianto couldn’t help but snap, rubbing his throat.</p><p>Jack blinked. “You mean… <em>your</em> me.”</p><p>“Ah… yeah.” said Ianto, who despite everything felt a bloom of warmth in his chest at the notion. Hastily, he collected himself again. “Look, I won’t deny it. I don’t know enough about time. This is… actually the first time I’ve time-travelled, and it wasn’t on purpose. I just want to get home safe, with you, and Gwen… oh, Gwen’s my best friend and the third member of our team. I think she’s up in the castle. But I promise, we never meant to become caught up in this.” He raised his eyebrows, imploring. “So please, either go back to the village and let me do my work to fix this… or <em>help</em> me fix it. Help me help you in the future.”</p><p>Jack scrutinised him, eyes narrowed, for a long moment, before flicking his gaze back to the door. He sighed, looking as though he was trying hard to cling to his anger. “Doesn’t sound like my future’s working out too well right at the moment.”</p><p>“Jack, I promise you. The only thing I want is to make this easier for you.” Throwing caution to the winds, Ianto stepped forward and took Jack’s hand in both of his own. “Both of you.”</p><p>Jack gave him a long, long look in the eyes. “I believe you,” he said, and Ianto almost thought he sounded surprised himself. “God damn it. I <em>believe</em> you.”</p><p>But before either of them could say anything else, there was another muffled scream of pain from the other side of the door. Ianto flinched violently, dropping Jack’s hand. “Okay,” he said, beginning to pace. “What we need to do… is figure out a way to save you, without you crossing your own timeline. Also, find Gwen. If things went this badly wrong, it’s likely she’s in trouble too. Then figure out what’s going on, and, um, find a way to stop it.”</p><p>“While also avoiding our stalker,” put in Jack. “Or did you forget that part?”</p><p>“Oh, yeah, that too,” said Ianto. “Though now you mention it, they don’t seem to have been–”</p><p>“Speak of the devil,” interrupted Jack.</p><p>Ianto’s eyes widened as he turned to follow Jack’s gaze. On the steps above them – in front of the door back to the main tunnel – a golden glow began to expand. Ianto drew his gun, as from it coalesced the figure of a man. He was dressed in a dark overcoat and a neat suit, hair an early silver, and his hand was clasped over something at his wrist. In a moment, Jack was at Ianto’s side, drawing his gun at the same time as Ianto.</p><p>“Get behind me,” said Jack, as the man peered down at them, at their weapons, eyes narrowed and calculating.</p><p>“What? No!” said Ianto, standing shoulder to shoulder with Jack, gun raised as he squinted up at the gold-limned figure. The man seemed to be peering at something on his wrist. Ianto’s eyes widened as he watched the man tap something into the controls there. “Is that...”</p><p>“Mister Ianto Jones?” said the man, looking almost quizzically down at him. Ianto felt a chill, as he recognised the voice from the tunnel earlier. “And Captain Jack Harkness,” the man said, with an odd sort of frown. “Why, it seems something has gone wrong here. Sir Frederick will want to know. Now, if you could come with me, then we needn’t have any unnecessary trouble.”</p><p>“Oh no, I promise this trouble’s gonna be very necessary indeed,” snarled Jack, cocking his gun and edging in front of Ianto.</p><p>The man gave him a long look, then shrugged placidly, and drew a gun from under his overcoat too.</p><p>Several things happened then. Before Ianto could stop him, Jack fired, the sound too loud in the confined space, echoing bizarrely against the stone. The bullet should have hit; it was short range, just up the stairs, and Ianto knew Jack was an impeccable shot at the best of times.</p><p>But as the bullet was in the air, the man tapped at the device on his wrist and disappeared, in a halo of golden light.</p><p>Before Ianto could even let out his breath in confusion, the man was materialising again in another blaze of golden light, right beside him. It caught Ianto by surprise for long enough that the man was able to grab his arm and twist it into a painful lock, making him drop his gun to the floor with a clatter. The man kicked it away immediately with a sweep of his foot, tripping Jack on his backswing, catching him off balance and sending him sprawling sideways into the stone wall.</p><p>Ianto struggled fiercely, trying to break the lock. But even when Ianto was able to start to loosen his grasp, the man didn’t lose a step, stepping back from Ianto and shoving him into the corner, bringing his gun about in a circle in a single fluid motion and emptying it into Jack’s chest. Ianto yelled in anger and nervous fear as he saw Jack’s eyes widen in fear for a moment, Jack’s own gun falling from his hand as he crumpled down dead into the corner. But Ianto had no time to think any further, as the man went for him, pressing a gun to his head and–</p><p>“Oi! You! Leave him alone!”</p><p>The man whirled, momentarily distracted by the voice behind him. That was all it took for him to momentarily loosen his grip enough to let Ianto get in a good punch to his stomach. Winded, he stumbled back enough to let see the stairs. Ianto couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face as he saw Gwen hitching up her long skirts to run down the steps, holding a long and very sharp-looking knife in her other hand. Half a step behind her was another woman, younger and dressed in a servant’s uniform, brandishing a heavy iron poker. Ianto took the opportunity to drop down to the floor and scoop up his dropped gun, aiming it at the man in between them as all three of them hemmed him into the other corner from where Jack was slumped.</p><p>The man stared from one to the other of them with cold, narrowed eyes, hands balled into fists, as though weighing up his options. But before any of them could do anything else, his hand was at his wrist once more, fiddling with a small brass device there – and didn’t that look like a clockwork version of Jack’s vortex manipulator? – before golden brilliance began to bloom around him once more.</p><p>“Get back!” Ianto shouted at the others, throwing out an arm to shield them; Jack’s encounter with this phenomenon earlier had left him with a healthy distrust of it. But the woman he didn’t know had already drawn back a good distance, all the way back to the bottom of the stairs, and Gwen with her, apparently heeding the warning.</p><p>And a moment later, the man had been enveloped by the light and had disappeared.</p><p>Ianto let out his breath slowly, sagging against the wall in relief. “Gwen,” he breathed. “Oh, God, Gwen I’m so glad to see you.”</p><p>Ianto noticed she still had the knife clutched in one hand, though now she was putting it back in some sort of thin ivory sheath. She also had what looked like a nasty head wound, congealed blood at her hairline.</p><p>“You too!” said Gwen, dropping the knife to the ground and pulling Ianto into a hug. “He nearly had you!”</p><p>“He caught us by surprise,” Ianto said. “He was, ah, a much better fighter than I was expecting.” He looked over at Jack, slumped in the corner, feeling tears come to his eyes. He dropped to his knees beside him, pulling Jack’s head and shoulders into his lap and stroking his hair sadly. He could feel Gwen’s eyes on both of them, and he thought he understood; he knew exactly how surreal it felt to see <em>this</em> Jack for the first time, looking so familiar and yet so different from their own Jack.</p><p>“He’s...” at this point the young woman with Gwen spoke for the first time, her eyes wide with horror. “Oh mercy, he’s dead! He’s been <em>murdered! </em><span>Mister Watkins did it! Then he just disappeared!</span>” she stared into the corner as though she was half expecting the man to appear there once again in a puff of smoke. Actually, Ianto couldn’t blame her.</p><p>“Mister Watkins?” said Gwen. “Sir Frederick’s butler?”</p><p>She nodded mutely. “I know he did that to your head and tied you up and all, but I didn’t think he’d <em>kill</em> someone...”</p><p>“Wait, Gwen, what’s been happening?” said Ianto; clearly this was even worse than he thought.</p><p>But Gwen ignored him for the moment, turning to Nettie. “He hasn’t killed anyone, sweetheart. Jack’s not dead,” soothed Gwen. “He’ll be alright. Just give him a moment to wake up.”</p><p>“He’s covered in blood!” she exclaimed, voice rising in pitch with her alarm. “He needs medicine, bandages… um...”</p><p>“Nettie! Nettie, calm down,” said Gwen, taking her by the arms gently but firmly. “Look at me, Nettie. He’ll be <em>fine</em>...” the woman just stared at her, looking even more disturbed than before. Gwen sighed, trying a different tack. “Nettie, this is Ianto Jones, a friend of mine,” said Gwen.</p><p>“P-pleased to meet you, Sir,” said Nettie, the normality of the introduction and the automatic curtsy she gave in response seeming to knock her a little back to reality.</p><p>“Ianto. this is Nettie. She works in the castle kitchens.”</p><p>“Oh!” said Ianto, remembering something Gwen mentioned earlier. “She’s the one Nia told you about, Gwen?”</p><p>Nettie’s face lit up at this. “You know Nia too?”</p><p>“We met briefly,” said Ianto. “She told me I had the same name as her cat.”</p><p>Nettie giggled at this, looking fractionally less nervous. “You do!”</p><p>But a moment later, the smile fell from her face again as another scream echoed through the door.</p><p>Gwen’s eyes widened, staring at Ianto in horror. “Is that–”</p><p>“Yep,” said Ianto gravely, clutching Jack a little tighter in his arms.</p><p>“Christ,” said Gwen, beginning to pace. Still, she was determined. “Alright, Nettie,” she said calmly after a moment, tearing her eyes away from Ianto and Jack on the floor. “Nettie, sweetheart, I need you to–”</p><p>But whatever she was going to say was interrupted as Jack gasped back to life in Ianto’s arms.</p>
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<a name="section0021"><h2>21. Chapter 21</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ianto was vaguely aware of Nettie screaming behind him as the previously dead and still body in his arms jerked back to violent life. But his attention was too much on Jack to pay her much notice as Gwen did her best to calm her.</p><p>For the first few moments Jack tried to fight him, struggling so fiercely in Ianto’s arms that it was all Ianto could do to dodge a fist to the face, or keep Jack from striking his head against the stone wall. Even when the initial burst of violence calmed, Jack seemed to curl in on himself, defensive as though he was expecting another killing strike, more pain. Always more pain.</p><p>“Jack!” Ianto yelled, grabbing fistfuls of Jack’s coat and clinging on, trying to get him to look at him. “It’s me. It’s <em>Ianto</em>. Remember? I’m not going to hurt you.”</p><p>For a moment Jack kept struggling, before he seemed to gain a little more clarity, going slack in Ianto’s arms if only in pure dumbstruck surprise.</p><p>“Shh, shh,” said Ianto, stroking Jack’s face as he stared up at him from his lap in a look of such wide-eyed confusion that Ianto might have laughed in any other circumstances. “It’s okay, Jack. You’re okay. I’ve got you. <em>Shh</em>...”</p><p>Jack blinked up at him, tentatively reaching up to clutch Ianto’s arms. “You’ve <em>got</em> me...”</p><p>“Yep.” Ianto felt oddly at sea here; with his own Jack it would be easy. They’d got into a pattern, where after one of Jack’s deaths Ianto would hold him like this, reassure him with small touches, small kisses sometimes if it was a particularly bad one. But here, with this Jack, he had a moment of doubt as he wondered where the boundaries lay, where this fit in the pretense at being little more than a coworker – and one from another time, too – that he was still trying to keep up, albeit less successfully by the minute.</p><p>But as soon as it had come, the doubt was gone. What mattered was Jack, over and above any misgivings Ianto might have. Even this Jack – perhaps <em>especially</em> this Jack – needed someone to care for him even if it was only temporary, to lessen the shock and pain and disorientation of ricocheting back into the living world after being shot down. That much was not open for negotiation, as far as Ianto was concerned.</p><p>And so he stroked his fingers through Jack’s hair. “You’re safe,” he said, then chuckled bitterly, as he amended. “Well, not <em>safe</em>, not by a long shot, but you’re alive.”</p><p>Jack frowned up at him, looking part confused, part distrustful, but despite that, with a heartbreakingly hopeful expression on his face. “You’re <em>here</em>...” he whispered in bewildered wonder, eyes never leaving Ianto’s face.</p><p>Ianto just squeezed him closer to his chest, feeling Jack’s heartbeat and thinking about time and causality with a sinking feeling in his heart.</p><p>To Ianto’s slight relief, it was Jack that pulled himself together first, putting away the stunned and tender look on his face like a letter in an envelope. Then he was levering himself up, shaking off Ianto’s grasp and leaning against the wall as he tutted at the torn, bloody mess of bullet holes the front of his shirt had become. Frowning, Jack pulled his coat closed and raised his head to see Gwen, who was standing in front of him with Nettie peering cautiously out from behind her.</p><p>Ianto watched Jack paste on his biggest smile. “<em>Hello</em>, ladies!” he said, with an expansive bow. “I take it you’re our rescuers?”</p><p>“Yep,” said Ianto hastily. “Remember I told you about Gwen? She’s Torchwood too. This is Nettie. She’s not, so, uh, yeah.”</p><p>But Nettie seemed to gain a little courage, stepping out from behind Gwen and dropping a determined curtsy. “Pleased to meet you, Captain Harkness…?”</p><p>“That’s me!” said Jack, with a wink at Nettie.</p><p>“I’ve seen a lot of strange things today, but if it please you Sir, I’m glad you’re alive, and I’m sorry for the way you’ve been treated here.”</p><p>Jack blinked, before smiling again. “Thanks, I appreciate it.” He turned from her to Gwen, who was still staring at him.</p><p>“...Sideburns,” said Gwen, before he could say anything. “Okay. Okay. Sideburns, right.”</p><p>Ianto snorted. “My feelings exactly.”</p><p>“Hey! Why does everyone take issue with the sideburns?” said Jack a little defensively. “I’m blending in with the local colour, and I’ll have you know I’m managing it better than you two are!”</p><p>“Well, some of us are new to this whole time travel lark,” said Gwen, extending her hand for Jack to shake. “Gwen Cooper. Torchwood.”</p><p>“Nice to meet you, Gwen Cooper,” said Jack with a grin. “Guess I don’t need to introduce myself then.”</p><p>“Nope. I hope Ianto’s been taking good care of you?”</p><p>“Oh, the <em>very</em> best,” said Jack, looking at Ianto with such a charmed expression on his face that it made Ianto sigh. Then Jack gave a slight leer, opening his mouth to say something else before Ianto cut him off.</p><p>“Gwen, what happened to you?” he said, eyes darting to the cut on her head, then at the door. “What’s happened to Jack…?”</p><p>“Wait, I um, I thought you were...” said Nettie, looking doubtfully over at Jack.</p><p>“Aw, balls, this is already getting complicated,” said Gwen, frowning, darting her gaze around the room and over the huge steel door with its complicated locking mechanism. She gave it a futile shake, but the handle didn’t budge; Ianto couldn’t even see anything that might be called a keyhole.</p><p>“Um, we should explain, and plan,” said Gwen. “But not here...” she darted a gaze back up the stairs. “You’re still probably being hunted, and I don’t like this dead end.”</p><p>“Me neither,” said Jack, glancing at the corner where he’d been lying a moment ago, where his blood was still smeared down the wall and pooling on the flagstones, dripping down into the cracks.</p><p>And so the four of them trouped up the stairs to the room above where the passageways divided.</p><p>“So,” said Gwen, leaning against the door. “What happened?” she gave Ianto an accusing glare. “And for that matter, why are you here? I thought you were staying in the village?”</p><p>“Yeah, didn’t um, quite work out like that,” said Ianto.</p><p>Gwen sighed. “Tell me everything.”</p><p>“Not much to tell, really,” he said, but filled her in quickly about what had happened, with Jack dropping a detail in here and there. Afterwards, Gwen told him in return about what she’d seen, their dinner with Sir Frederick Carrington and what had happened after, about how Nettie had come to save her.</p><p>“Them golden lights,” said Nettie, unexpectedly after they were done. “That’s what I saw down in the scullery. Same when Mister Watkins appears and disappears. How’s he doing that, anyway?”</p><p>“He had this device,” said Ianto, doubtfully, eyes flicking to Jack’s arm where he knew the wrist strap was under his coat. “It’s something like yours, but I didn’t get a good look at it to tell for certain. It can’t be though, can it?”</p><p>“No,” said Jack, shaking his head. “If he somehow had a vortex manipulator we’d have bigger problems. He’d be able to get us right away, for one thing… he’d be here now, probably. I reckon it’s gotta be some sort of primitive short-range teleport device, probably homemade, likely reverse engineered, but I can’t work out where you’d get the power to make something like that work consistently. Not in this century, anyway.”</p><p>“Well, I think we’ve established that things tend to be a bit out of their time around here. We’re not on the Rift, but we’re not a million miles away. My guess is alien tech.”</p><p>“Alien?” said Nettie, eyes huge. “You mean people in other countries have things that can do that?”</p><p>“Something like that, yes,” said Gwen, frowning and starting to pace.</p><p>“But it’s not just that,” said Ianto. “There’s still the popcorny energy field, remember? Those portals keep opening spontaneously, we saw one in the village. Maybe Watkins is just using that energy to teleport around. Like, I dunno. Surfing.”</p><p>“That’d make more sense,” said Jack, “though it does create as many questions as it answers.”</p><p>“Yeah, like, why the hell does some jumped-up aristocrat with his own private castle need a butler that’s trained in combat?” snarled Gwen, clearly getting angry in her nervousness.</p><p>“Mister Watkins? Oh, there’s all sorts of rumours about him, have been since my Ma started in the kitchens,” said Nettie, dropping her voice. “People say back in London, before Sir Frederick took him on, Mister Watkins was a thief, was able to snuff a man out all quiet. Said he knew all sorts, the ones you meet in gin bars, knew who to talk to if you know what I mean. I never believed it, not proper you know? But there were rumours, things about Sir Frederick sending him to see people he didn’t like, then all his problems went away. Things about how he covered up how Mistress Charlotte really died...” she was staring, wide-eyed. “What if it wasn’t just that? Oh, mercy, what if it’s worse than that… what if… what if he killed her…?”</p><p>“Now, let’s not go jumping to conclusions,” said Jack, but his face was grim. “It might make sense that a man like Carrington has a butler – or maybe a fixer – with less than legal contacts, who can get things done that he wouldn’t be able to accomplish in polite society. If Watkins also knows how to fight he can act as a bodyguard in a pinch. That makes sense to me, I’ve known a lot of guys like that.” He grinned. “Conned a few of them out of their money and their stuff too. They’re all the same.”</p><p>“Hmm,” said Gwen, frowning, clearly not reassured by this. “Well, either way he’s definitely onto us. I think the portals… or whatever they are… are the most concerning part of this. They keep popping up at random, but we have no way of predicting where they go, or how long they stay open for. What happens if you’re halfway through one when it closes?”</p><p>“It’d cut through you, I reckon,” said Ianto, resisting the way his fingers itched to reach out and grasp Jack’s hand. “We saw it happen. Well, a bit. I assume we can extrapolate from a few fingers to a whole body.”</p><p>“Fingers?” Nettie raised her head, looking alarmed.</p><p>“It’s okay, Nettie,” said Gwen, “there’s no immediate danger of–”</p><p>“No, it’s not that!” she said, biting her lip nervously. “Earlier, there was one of them gold… things… down stairs. I saw… something like the air opening up. Someone’s fingers fell through, all bloody on the floor!”</p><p>Jack blinked. “Hey, those were my fingers!”</p><p>Nettie looked aghast. “Oh, mercy, Sir! I’m so sorry! Are you hurt? Do you need–”</p><p>“He’s fine, Nettie,” said Gwen, shooting Jack a quelling look. “Right, well. We need to decide what to do.”</p><p>“We find a way to rescue Jack,” said Ianto immediately, glancing towards the door they’d left through. It was silent now, but somehow that didn’t reassure him much.</p><p>“I agree,” said Jack beside him, looking tense. “My future is not sounding fun right now.”</p><p>“Yes, well, rescuing Jack’s a given,” said Gwen. “I was thinking more about the how of it.”</p><p>“We break into that room,” said Ianto. “If we can’t break the lock after a few tries we can go up to the castle, see if there’s any notes with the combination, or… or settings, or something.”</p><p>“They’d be in Sir Frederick’s study,” said Nettie. “In the west corner tower. He doesn’t let us in there, not even to clean… no one has the key but Sir Frederick and Mister Watkins. But that’s where they’d be.”</p><p>“Excellent,” Ianto said. “Maybe we can find some clue to whatever’s making the portals, too.”</p><p>“Good plan,” said Gwen, turning around to face him. “But drop the <em>we</em>.”</p><p>Ianto blinked. “What?”</p><p>“You’re turning right around and going back to the village." She hooked a thumb at Jack. "You’re taking him with you. And you’re leaving the rest of this job to me.”</p><p>“No the <em>hell</em> I am not!”</p><p>“Yes the hell you are, Ianto Jones. It’s too dangerous for you to be here. Jack too. He can’t meet himself. Your job was to keep him away from himself, remember?”</p><p>“Wait, really?” put in Jack. “That’s why–”</p><p>But before he could say more, Ianto was interrupting him. “I’m not having you send me home like a little kid, Gwen. I’m a Torchwood agent, and this is my job as much as yours.”</p><p>“No, Ianto!” said Gwen. “Let me handle it. You’re in danger, remember?”</p><p>“And you’ve got a concussion!” he protested.</p><p>“<em>Might</em> have a concussion.”</p><p>“You got hit over the head with a crowbar!”</p><p>“Well, it doesn’t matter because I outrank you, and I’m making it an order.”</p><p>“You can’t do that!”</p><p>“Technically I can. The chain of command is–”</p><p>“<em>Ohhhh</em>, so she’s your boss, Ianto!” interrupted Jack, grinning as he turned back to Gwen. “Should I be calling you Ma’am, then?”</p><p>“Couldn’t hurt,” said Gwen.</p><p>“Absolutely not,” said Ianto, at the same moment, looking daggers at Jack. He sighed, doing his best to ignore Jack peering at the two of them, apparently fascinated, as they stared each other down. “Look, Gwen… I’m here now. I can <em>help</em>.” He shot a look towards the door. “Let me help? Please?”</p><p>She looked back at him for a long, fraught moment. “Ianto...” she dropped her voice, pulling him into the far corner of the room and whispering in his ear so that Jack wouldn’t be able to hear. “Jack would never forgive me if anything happened to you on my watch. I have a duty to him, and to you, a duty to keep you safe. And believe me, I know how capable you are. I <em>want</em> you with me, Ianto, I do, and if things were different of course I’d want you to help me. But remember what Jack said, back at the inn? You have to assume there’s a target on your back.”</p><p>“But...”</p><p>“No buts,” she said firmly. “The best thing you can do for Jack right now is to keep yourself safe, and protect his past self.”</p><p>“He doesn’t need my protection,” said Ianto half-heartedly. But he knew this tone of voice, knew that the argument was over and trying to convince her anymore would be pointless, like beating his fists against a stone wall. In a way it reminded him of what it sometimes felt like to argue with Jack. Really they were maddeningly similar sometimes, these two people he cared for most and spent most of his time with, and Ianto hated fighting with either of them.</p><p>“I think you’d be surprised,” said Gwen, with a slight smile. She patted his arm, drawing back so they were back in the centre of the room. She forced a bigger and more confident smile, hands on her hips as she looked at the other two. “Right, Nettie… with me. We’re going to try and pick that lock, or else find another way in. Jack, Ianto… back to the village.”</p><p>Jack made to speak, but Ianto silenced him with a look. “She’s my commanding officer, after all,” he said, a little resentfully. But only a little; a large part of him knew Gwen was just doing what Jack had asked her to, and she was right to do it.</p><p>“...Okay,” said Jack, with only a slight frown. He gave Gwen a half grin and a jaunty salute. “Ma’am. It’s been a pleasure.”</p><p>“That might be going a little far, in the circumstances,” said Gwen, but she was smiling, taking Jack’s hand and giving it a little squeeze. “But don’t worry, we’ll get another chance. Eventually.”</p><p>“Oh, I look forward to it.”</p><p>She chuckled, rolling her eyes at his wink. She seemed like she didn’t quite know how to behave around this version of him still, and honestly Ianto could sympathise. But then she was turning to Ianto, pulling him into another hug, before he could say anything else. She pressed a kiss to his cheek and drew back a little, her forehead still pressed to his. “Like I said before,” she said. “Please don’t die.”</p><p>He couldn’t help but chuckle. “You too, okay?”</p><p>“I’m going to do my best. I’ll meet you back at the inn, yeah?”</p><p>“See you there.”</p><p>Gwen nodded, unsheathing the knife. “Hmm, wonder if this could be used to force a big scary door? No time like the present to give it a try. Come on, Nettie.”</p><p>Nettie dropped another curtsy, then followed Gwen back to the door to the stairs, closing it behind them and once again leaving Jack and Ianto alone.</p><p>“Well,” said Jack. “Guess we’re going back to the village then.”</p><p>He made to turn to the door back to the other tunnel.</p><p>But he paused as Ianto caught his wrist, still turned to the stairs that led upwards.</p><p>“Ianto?” Jack raised his eyebrows. “What’re you doing? I thought we were going back to the village?”</p><p>Ianto looked at the door behind which Gwen and Nettie had disappeared. He thought of the door beyond, and beyond that, his own Jack suffering. He looked at the spiral stairs, remembering the way they’d walked down this morning in the twenty-first century, unaware of the danger that waited. He thought of the castle up above, stacks of papers where in all likelihood the answer to all this lay buried.</p><p>And he looked Jack in the eye. “Bollocks to that,” he said. “I’m going up to the castle, no matter what Gwen says.”</p><p>And without even turning back to see if Jack was following, he turned to the spiral stairs and began to climb.</p>
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<a name="section0022"><h2>22. Chapter 22</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Isn’t this gonna come back on you?” Jack asked Ianto’s back as they climbed the spiral staircase in single file, keeping a few steps between them all the while.</p><p>“What do you mean?” said Ianto, not looking back or slowing his pace.</p><p>“Disobeying a direct order from your commanding officer.” <em>For my sake</em>, Jack didn’t add, but filed the thought away to analyse more closely later.</p><p>“Gwen’s my friend,” said Ianto. “She’ll be worried, and probably a bit pissed off at me for a while. But she won’t mind.” As Jack looked up the spiral, he saw Ianto frown slightly, in profile. “Not like you to show so much deference to authority.”</p><p>Jack shrugged. “It’s you I’m worried for. I know what Torchwood command is like,” he said, wincing as he thought of electrocution, sedation, bullets between the eyes when he’d failed to accomplish a mission and caught Emily in a particularly bad mood.</p><p>But Ianto seemed surprised at this. “I know what it’s like in <em>my</em> time,” he said. “What is it like now? ...Do they really treat you so badly?”</p><p>Jack snorted. “Ianto Jones, are you asking me to badmouth my boss?”</p><p>“If you want,” said Ianto, and a smile touched his lips, as some private joke it seemed. “Mine can be a right stubborn bastard sometimes.” He sighed. “...But I can’t complain. I’ve made mistakes before, disobeyed orders before, and been forgiven. Perhaps too easily.”</p><p>“I’m glad,” said Jack, and he was. “It’s not like that, for me,” he said softly, something about the moment making him want to confide; perhaps it was the spiral staircase, seemingly endless and repeating, taking them up by slow, effortful increments. It almost felt like their own little world of echoing stone. “Emily Holroyd… she doesn’t have any patience for mistakes, or for anything alien, anything not from this time. Sometimes I think the only person she really cares about is Alice.”</p><p>“Alice…?”</p><p>“Alice Guppy. Her second in command. And girlfriend apparently.” Jack grinned. “You know, I accidentally walked in on them down to their petticoats in Emily’s office one time, a few months back. ...Miiiight have made a joke about joining in, and got locked in a cell with a hungry weevil for my troubles. Got to find out what evisceration felt like for the first time that day, and in case you’re wondering, the answer is “<em>nasty”</em>.”</p><p>He thought Ianto might laugh, but instead he was treated to a horrified look over Ianto’s shoulder. “They did that to you?”</p><p>“It’s no big deal,” said Jack with a shrug, suddenly almost self-conscious under Ianto’s scrutiny. “I’ve had worse. And anyway, I’m fine now, aren’t I?”</p><p>Ianto didn’t answer, just stared wide-eyed, forward at the stairs his was climbing again, though his jaw was tighter than before.</p><p>“Hey, what is it?” said Jack, reaching up to grab Ianto’s sleeve.</p><p>At the same moment Ianto stopped on the stairs, turning around to face him, ending up with Jack’s hand on his arm. “Why are you coming with me?” he said. “You didn’t have to. I didn’t ask you to.”</p><p>“You did,” said Jack. “Back in the village, you pretended to be from Torchwood One, sent to check me out.” He grinned. “Which you’re still very welcome to do, by the way.”</p><p>Ianto didn’t seem put at ease by the joke, however. “Okay, yes, but that was then,” he said. “When Gwen sent us back… you could have gone back to the village. Gwen was right, it’s definitely dangerous for you to be here. You could cross your own timeline.”</p><p>“Well, now I know future me is here, I’ll be careful not to,” said Jack.</p><p>“That’s not all though, is it?”</p><p>“What d’you mean?”</p><p>Ianto looked at him with an impossibly soft expression, pleading for something with his eyes alone. Very blue eyes, and <em>oh</em>, with his face all scrunched up like that Jack really, really wanted to kiss him again.</p><p>“That’s what <em>I</em> was asking <em>you</em>,” Ianto pointed out.</p><p>“Well, someone’s gotta keep you out of trouble.”</p><p>“Excuse me?”</p><p>“Couple of things I’ve noticed about you, right off the bat. One, you’re pretty hot. Two, you’ve got no goddamn sense of self-preservation.”</p><p>“You’re one to talk.”</p><p>“Yeah well. Takes one to know one, I guess,” said Jack, with a slight grin. “...<em>Wait</em>, did you just call me hot?”</p><p>Ianto did not answer, but merely turned around on the stairs again and started walking up, faster than before. But Jack didn’t miss the blush rising up his cheeks. Still, he ran up the stairs to catch up with Ianto again just as they came to a flat landing at the top of the spiral, at the base of a narrower flight of stairs that led straight up, to a trapdoor in the ceiling. He grabbed Ianto by the sleeve and turned him around again, back against the side of the stairs, their faces at the same height now they stood on flat ground. And close, Jack realised. “Three,” he said, “you held onto me.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“When I died, you were there holding me when I came back. <em>No one</em> does that. It’s enough to make a guy curious, at least.”</p><p>Ianto blinked slowly at him. “I suppose so,” he said, neatly ducking underneath Jack’s arm that bracketed him against the side of the staircase. “But I’m afraid you’re going to have to keep on being curious, for now.” He started climbing the steep, narrow staircase purposefully, pushing open the trapdoor. “Help me with this?”</p><p>“Whatever you say, Mister Jones.”</p><p>A few minutes later Jack was leaning back against a wall, while Ianto listened at a servant’s door. It had taken them a little wandering around the lower levels to find the way up to the west tower, but they’d managed in the end, climbing the servant’s stair and pausing on every floor to peer into the elegant, wood-paneled square spiral, of which they’d reached the top to find a single door.</p><p>“I think the coast’s clear,” said Ianto, drawing back and looking at Jack. “I can try and pick the lock.”</p><p>“It’s times like this I wish I still had my squareness gun.”</p><p>“Your <em>what</em> gun?”</p><p>“Oh, it’s what an old friend of mine used to call my sonic blaster.”</p><p>“Oh, I bet it was.”</p><p>Jack grinned. “<em>Literal</em> sonic blaster. Sadly.”</p><p>“Yes, well, no use crying over spilled alien weaponry,” said Ianto briskly, cracking open the door a little way and sticking his head out, before venturing out onto the landing, Jack at his heels. “I can try to–”</p><p>But he broke off, freezing in front of the door with his hand on the doorknob, so suddenly that Jack nearly walked into his back.</p><p>“What?” said Jack, peering over Ianto’s shoulder. “What is it?”</p><p>“It’s not locked,” whispered Ianto, urgent as he hushed Jack with a gesture. “There might be someone in there.”</p><p>“What do we do?” hissed Jack.</p><p>“Take a look?”</p><p>“Are you crazy?” Jack grabbed Ianto’s arm as he made to turn the doorknob. “These people are dangerous. They were gonna torture me. Hell, they <em>are</em> torturing me down there!”</p><p>Ianto flinched at the reminder. “Which is what I’m trying to put a stop to.”</p><p>“So what, you’re just gonna walk in?”</p><p>“Well, what do you want to do, just turn around and go back? Because like I said, you can go whenever you want. But I’m going in.”</p><p>Jack opened his mouth and closed it again, but by then it was too late. Ianto turned the doorknob, slow enough to be soundless, and opened the door a crack, peering through.</p><p>Over his shoulder, Jack could see a wide and beautiful cherry-wood desk, covered in notes and small wire models, instrument components and pencil stubs, reference books piled high all around.</p><p>But kneeling beside the desk with her back to them was a woman in a maid’s uniform, busily rifling through the desk drawers, papers taken out and stacked all around her knees. She seemed too absorbed to have noticed them yet.</p><p>Jack grinned, opening the door and stepping forward, making his voice carry. “Find anything juicy in there? Scandalous? Incriminating? You gotta share.”</p><p>The woman started in alarm at the sound of his voice, springing to her feet and whirling around. For a moment Jack thought he was going to get a spill of guilty apologies and excuses, the chance to maybe make another ally here before he let her go. A moment later though, he gasped as the woman drew a gun on him, in a single fluid motion. Jack went automatically for his own weapon, but Ianto had beat him to it, aiming at her.</p><p>It was only then that he really saw the woman; for a moment he hadn’t recognised her in the neat servant’s dress and cap, but her face was familiar enough to make his breath catch in his throat.</p><p>“...<em>Yo</em><em>u</em>...”</p><p>“Harkness,” said Alice Guppy, glaring between him and Ianto. “What the devil are you doing here?”</p>
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<a name="section0023"><h2>23. Chapter 23</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“What am <em>I</em> doing here?” exclaimed Jack. “What are <em>you</em> doing here?”</p><p>Alice ignored this, swiveling around so she was pointing her gun at Ianto, staring at him down the barrel. “I ask the questions here. On which point, who are <em>you</em>?”</p><p>Ianto glared back at her, remembering what Jack had told him and suppressing the urge yell at her, gun in his face or not. “I’m Ianto Jones,” he said. “Torchwood Three agent.”</p><p>“It’s almost charming that you think that will work on me.” She scoffed, twitching the gun up closer to his face as he slipped his other hand to his pocket, and he raised his to match.</p><p>Ianto glared back at her. “Weapons down, hands where I can see them!”</p><p>“Hey, hey! Put your guns down, both of you!” said Jack, stepping physically between them. Ianto immediately lowered his gun a little, reflexively. Alice didn’t, and Ianto had the impression she wouldn’t think twice about shooting right through him if it came to it. But Jack just looked from one of then to the other. “Miss Guppy… Alice. This is Ianto Jones, he really is Torchwood Three–”</p><p>“Which I was just about to show you proof of, if you’d stop pointing that bloody gun at me,” Ianto put in, thinking of the Torchwood ID in his pocket.</p><p>Jack shot him a <em>be quiet and let me do the talking look</em>, and turned back to Alice. “He’s from the future. Early twenty-first century.”</p><p>Alice frowned at this. “Why should Torchwood of the twenty-first century take an interest in this case?”</p><p>“Trust me, it wasn’t by choice,” snapped Ianto. “My, ah, colleagues and I fell through time. We got brought here accidentally.”</p><p>“Well, that was clumsy of you,” said Alice, with a slight sneer. “And now you’re here you just decided to take an interest in <em>my</em> case?”</p><p>“Trust me, there are plenty of things I’d rather be doing,” said Ianto, through gritted teeth.</p><p>“Look,” said Jack, pointing. “His gun isn’t standard for this time period, right? He’s not from this time. He needs our help to get home safe.”</p><p>Alice raised an eyebrow. “Harkness, I would advise you to save your bleeding heart for the weevils. I gather they rather like the taste of it.” Her eyes roamed over Ianto. “Well, you certainly don’t look like a local boy, even though you’ve got the accent for it. You’re going to have to do better though; the Rift doesn’t–”</p><p>“Doesn’t stretch out this far, yes, I know,” said Ianto, impatient. “That’s the part we haven’t figured out yet. I think it must be something to do with what Carrington is doing in his basement. Which, I assume, is also why you’re here.”</p><p>She raised her eyebrows.</p><p>Ianto held her gaze. “Just let me show you proof.”</p><p>Jack exchanged a look with Ianto, then gave Alice a long, imploring look.</p><p>She sighed. “Go on. Put your gun away first though. If you think you’re a quicker draw than me you’re wrong, and I’d <em>really</em> rather not get your blood on this apron. They’ll ask questions in the laundry room.”</p><p>Slowly, Ianto nodded, tucking his gun away under his jacket once more. The tension in the room was palpable as he reached into his coat to pull out his Torchwood ID, taking it out and thrusting it in front of her. “Here,” he said. “Ianto Jones, born August nineteenth, 1983. Recruited to Torchwood One in 2004, then to Torchwood Three in 2007.”</p><p>She raised her eyebrow and frowned. “Got sent to the outpost, did you?”</p><p>“You could say that,” said Ianto, feeling sure that telling her about the battle of Canary Wharf and what had happened to Torchwood One would have consequences. Not that he knew what they’d be… Jack would probably know, but he couldn’t ask <em>this</em> Jack, only <em>his</em> Jack, and oh, time travel was complicated, wasn’t it? He had a sudden flash of something like vertigo, as several things occurred to him; if he told her now about Canary Wharf, then that might mean that Torchwood could prepare, could put a message in the archives to warn them when the time came. With the realisation came a terrible, tempting sense of power, and a consciousness of how precarious the events of his life were.</p><p>But no, he realised. If he warned them of what was to come – assuming they actually listened – that might well change the future. If Canary Wharf never fell, then Ianto would never have fled to Cardiff with Lisa, would never have met Jack and been recruited to Torchwood Three at all. Which would mean he would never have come here, and would never have been able to give the warning in the first place, and...</p><p>He blinked, head spinning; he supposed the real lesson here was he needed to be far more careful than he had been so far. At least Jack already knew the future – some of it, at least – so he’d been granted a bit of a reprieve there. But history was a fragile thing, and as he watched Alice inspect his ID, he was more conscious of it than ever.</p><p>He watched her turn the plastic card over and her eyes narrow, and remembered, belatedly, that it was signed by his recruiting officer on the reverse side. Which was Jack. He was almost glad, then, when she twitched it away from Jack’s surreptitious, curious glance. A moment later, she handed it back to Ianto with a sniff.</p><p>“That seems to be in order,” she said, lowering her gun at last. Ianto relaxed very slightly. “Well, then, I suppose if you’re at my disposal, I may as well put you to work.”</p><p>“I’m <em>not</em> at your disposal, actually,” said Ianto coldly. “I may be Torchwood, but I don’t answer to you.”</p><p>“Alright then. Well, even if I can’t order you to, would you <em>please</em> do me the courtesy of explaining why you saw fit to distract Harkness from his mission?”</p><p>Ianto glared at her. “Would you please do me the courtesy of explaining why you sent him alone into a situation where he was to be… I dunno, tortured, or experimented on… entirely without any prior information?”</p><p>“I didn’t,” she said patiently. “Miss Emily Holroyd, head of Torchwood Three did, and briefed him on as much of the mission as his part in it required. It’s not your place to question–” she broke off, blinking as she registered the other part of what he said. “Wait...” she said, looking between him and Jack with a fascinated gleam in her eye, “tortured? Experimented on?”</p><p>Jack nodded, jaw tense. “There’s a future version of me down there right now, who came with Ianto from the twenty-first century. We heard him screaming.”</p><p>Alice’s mouth opened and closed for a moment, as she absorbed this information. “Do you know, then, what Carrington wanted him for?”</p><p>“Does it matter?” said Ianto, voice rising. Jack was giving him a warning look, but he ignored it.</p><p>“Well, rather,” said Alice. “That is why he’s here, after all. Harkness has shown he can’t be trusted with the finer details of a mission like this, but he has his uses.”</p><p>Ianto’s response died in his mouth, such was his shock at her dismissive tone.</p><p>Jack was frowning at her too now. “You sent me in… as what, then? Bait?”</p><p>“Don’t be melodramatic. We sent you on this mission because Carrington asked for you especially,” said Alice. “He was getting rather close to Torchwood in his enquiries, to the point of sending his men to our door to ask after the rumours he’d heard of a man who couldn’t die,” she rolled her eyes. “My dear Emily merely intended to solve one problem with another.”</p><p>“Tell me what happened,” ordered Ianto, glaring at Alice. “Tell me, and I can help. I have as much reason to want to put a stop to whatever’s going on in this castle as you do. Probably more.”</p><p>“If you’re really from the future, don’t you already know how this ends?”</p><p>“Wouldn’t that be convenient,” sniped Ianto, lip curling. “Unfortunately, <em>someone</em> didn’t keep very comprehensive records.” <em>And it was a cold case that was never solved</em>, he didn’t add. He didn’t know what that meant for their chances of getting home, and honestly he didn’t want to think too hard about that right now.</p><p>She gave a put upon sigh. “Well, if it’ll satisfy you… at first, we thought perhaps Carrington was just a man who liked to collect curiosities, with too much money and his own private empire. But then, Emily traveled here to check. And she began to find traces of the strangest energy readings all across the valley, centered on the castle. She secured an interview with Carrington – a social invitation, you understand, claiming to be a society lady, an amateur interested in his scientific research – but when she was there, though he showed her a great many pleasing electrical devices, there was no accounting for the energy readings. Thus, some weeks ago, she sent me undercover...” Alice smoothed down her apron, wrinkling her nose in distaste, “since no one in the valley knew my face, as they knew hers.”</p><p>“And Jack?” said Ianto, fighting back the urge to pull Jack into his arms, to physically put himself between Jack and Alice. “Why send him here?”</p><p>“Because Carrington clearly needed him for something,” said Alice. “His inquiries weren’t those of a man with an interest in local legends. They were systematic, sending his man to interview reprobates in gin bars and back alleys who had seen Harkness’s… unique abilities. They spoke the name <em>Jack Harkness</em> in the same breath as <em>Torchwood</em>. Carrington had to be stopped. He was becoming a liability, or turning <em>you</em> into one at any rate.” She turned to Jack and poked him in the chest with the muzzle of her gun.</p><p>“Someone wasn’t careful enough with the Retcon,” muttered Ianto, glaring at Alice.</p><p>Alice glared right back. “Trust me, I am ready to administer it at all times. But the point is, Carrington needed Harkness. I was to be here and witness what happened when he got hold of him. Then, whatever it was, either put an end to it or claim it for Torchwood’s use, and thus for the benefit of the Empire.”</p><p>There was a short silence in the wake of this pronouncement.</p><p>“Okay, but it doesn’t change the fact that <em>y</em><em>ou sent me in to get tortured!</em>” said Jack after a moment, looking affronted. “You could have at least warned me that might happen!”</p><p>“You were to be paid handsomely… we expected no complaint, and received none.” She chuckled. “Besides, it’s not as though you’d incur any permanent damage, is it?”</p><p>That was the breaking point; Ianto couldn’t help it any longer. He let out a snarl, drawing back his arm and making a fist, stepping into the blow as he went to knock her down.</p><p>But before he could, Jack was grabbing his arm, painful with the force of it, wrestling him back towards the door. “<em>Ianto!</em>” he gritted out. “Ianto, stop!” Ianto struggled against his grip momentarily, but sighed, letting Jack push him back against the bookcase by the wrists. “Ianto, we came here for a reason, remember?” he hissed under his breath, frowning. “We need her on our side. ...And I still gotta work for her, after this.”</p><p>Ianto opened his mouth and closed it again, as he realised Jack was right; to get to the twenty-first century, to become the head of Torchwood Three and meet Ianto in the first place, Jack needed to live through this. No choice, no matter what Ianto did. He went still, realising all of a sudden that Jack was inches from his face, pinning his wrists back against the bookcase, body pressed close against his. Ianto cleared his throat, face heating self-consciously at the position, then forced himself to collect his wits. At least while Alice was in the room.</p><p>As Ianto took a breath, Jack let him go, giving him a last warning look as they turned back to her.</p><p>“If you’re quite done with the histrionics,” she said primly, brushing a speck of imaginary dust off her sleeve and squaring off a sheaf of papers on the desk, “then I’d quite like to finish searching this room. Before someone comes looking.”</p><p>Ianto gritted his teeth, nodding and thinking of Jack, not the Jack beside him this time but the one behind that iron door far below. On his mind too was the encounter they’d had before; Watkins was still out there, still looking for them in all probability. He could sort through his own feelings later, if he survived the night.</p><p>And so, Ianto sighed. “I’ll look for the combination, you go through the notes on the desk.”</p><p>Alice nodded, and Jack clasped his hands together. “Let’s get to work.”</p><hr/><p>Gwen sighed regretfully, putting the knife back in its sheath and leaning back against the door, slamming her shoulder against it in frustration.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Ma’am,” said Nettie sadly. “It doesn’t seem to want to budge.”</p><p>“It’s Gwen,” Gwen corrected automatically. “No need for all that <em>Ma’am</em> stuff. Especially after all this lot.”</p><p>“Oh… thank you, Gwen.”</p><p>Gwen smiled, rolling out her back and slamming the door once again; all it did was hurt her shoulder. She groaned, and leaned back against the door, casting her eyes over it again for anything she could pick, any point at which she might better apply force. But once again, there was nothing. She flopped back against the wall for a moment, leaning her weight against it. It was very uncomfortable with her bustle, but Gwen was <em>tired</em>, tired of all of this. She took a moment, getting her breath back and rubbing her aching arm, trying to ignore the way her head was still throbbing unpleasantly from earlier.</p><p>Nettie leaned back beside her, looking regretful. “You know, when I was just a little thing my mum used to say, when one door closes, another opens.” She laughed, a little self-consciously. “I dunno if she meant it like this… this door seems to be the only one there is, and I don’t see it opening any time soon...” she frowned. “Um, I wonder if perhaps we might be better trying to steal that study key after all...”</p><p>Gwen breathed out, frustrated, knowing Nettie was right. Going up to the castle again would be dangerous too she knew, but it looked like it was their only option.</p><p>“You know, back home we’ve got this... <em>thing</em> that can open any door,” Gwen said, thinking longingly of the Hub, and all the tech they kept there. Clearly, she’d got far too used to having all of that at her disposal.</p><p>“Oh, my. Your home sounds wonderful, Ma– Gwen.”</p><p>Gwen smiled. “It is,” she said. “You know, all I want is to get back there, with Jack and Ianto. Most of all though, I want to see my husband again.”</p><p>“I thought the Captain was your husband…?”</p><p>“Oh! No, that was only for a disguise. Jack’s my friend, but I’m not married to him. No, my husband’s name is Rhys.” She sighed at the pang saying his name brought her. “I miss him.”</p><p>“Oh. Well, I hope you get back to him soon.” Nettie thought for a moment, then touched her arm gently. “I don’t really understand all the strangeness I’ve seen today. And goodness, if I haven’t seen a lot of it. But, um, I think… I think, if shiny gold lights in the sky are possible, if dead men can come back to life and if Mister Watkins can appear and disappear as he pleases, then I think you should be able to do a little thing like get home.”</p><p>Gwen smiled, genuinely touched. “I hope so.”</p><p>“I think…” Nettie hesitated. “I think I like to believe in impossible things, even if they make me afraid. Because if one impossible thing can happen, a bad one I mean, then maybe… maybe a good one can happen, too. Maybe it can end happy, after all.”</p><p>Gwen blinked at her, remembering suddenly what Nia had told her; the dreams she and Nettie and Ifan had, of moving away from here for good, a family of their own. The way that Nia loved Nettie, the way Nettie’s face lit up when she mentioned Nia, the way that Ifan cared for them both in their different ways.</p><p><em>Ifan</em>… Gwen had almost forgotten, but her stomach plunged at the memory of what had to happen tonight, the cost of the safety she’d just sent Ianto to. She hated that it had been so easy to forget, in amongst everything that had happened.</p><p>But still, there wasn’t anything she could do now, she realised. Much less while Jack was in trouble and needed her.</p><p>“Um… Gwen? Are you alright?”</p><p>She blinked back to the present, rearranging her face back into a smile to hide her guilt as she laid her hand over Nettie’s on her forearm. “I’m fine,” she said. “And I hope you get your happy ending, Nettie. Really, I do. No one deserves it more than you.”</p><p>“Thank you.”</p><p>“...Nettie–”</p><p>But she broke off, and winced as they heard a sound like thunder through the door, so loud she could hear the vibrations through the floor, accompanied by another scream that was abruptly cut off.</p><p>Gwen started at the abrupt tremors, dread in her heart; it reminded her far too much of when she and Jack and Ianto had been caught in the tunnel, when they’d slipped through time in the first place. And as much as that possibility scared her, she was equally afraid of being crushed by rubble as this portion of the tunnel collapsed.</p><p>But this time, there were no cracks in the ceiling, no time slip. Instead, the shaking subsided after a few seconds, leaving them clinging nervously together in front of the door, just as before.</p><p>“What happened just then?” yelped Nettie, but Gwen just shook her head, straightening up and pushing Nettie behind her, as a mere moment later a burst of gold expanded into being in front of them.</p><p>“Oh!” said Nettie. “That’s like the other one I saw, down in the kitchens! Only this one’s much bigger… oh, mercy, it’s like a window… I can <em>see</em> through it!”</p><p>Sure enough, she was quite right. The portal opened wide and bright, and Gwen could see a scene through it; or rather, she could see mostly stacks of machine parts, rolls of heavy duty copper wire. It wasn’t easy to see because behind it all there blazed a golden light, too bright to look at. In front of it was some sort of complex apparatus, and just off to the side – where the light was not quite as bright, merely dazzling rather than outright painful – the figure of a man was cut out in silhouette against the churning, shifting gold. He appeared to pay them no mind, indeed, his back was turned mostly towards where Gwen and Nettie peered through, busy with some piece of machinery that Gwen couldn’t quite make out.</p><p>And suddenly, Gwen knew exactly what she had to do. She smiled grimly, unsheathing the knife again and holding it, taking Nettie’s hand in hers on her other side.</p><p>“Nettie,” she said. “You know what your mum said about doors? Well. I think she was right.”</p><p>Nettie merely took a big, fortifying breath and nodded wordlessly. Her eyes were wide as saucers as she stared, reflecting the gold in their soft brown, but she clutched Gwen’s hand tighter, squaring her shoulders in determination.</p><p>And with that, Gwen steeled herself and led Nettie forwards, stepping through into the light.</p><hr/><p>Ifan was on the road back to the village, driving the now empty coach down the switchback. He was passing the time on the familiar journey by looking up at the clear night sky strewn with stars as he drove Delia through the frigid night. He was about halfway down, and his fingers were beginning to get cold and lose feeling as he clutched the reins, gloves or no; there was going to be a hard frost tomorrow, he knew.</p><p>He was just thinking that he ought to bring some more firewood in for his mother – and make sure the cat was in for the night, where it was warm – when he saw it.</p><p>He drew in the reins, making Delia neigh with alarm, as a bright patch of gold erupted not too far in front of him along the path. It seemed to glow in the darkness, shifting and changing, before suddenly vanishing back into blackness.</p><p>But only for a moment. Something caught his eye and Ifan stared out over the valley, just in time to see several similar flecks of gold appear, bursting into being here and there before winking out. Ifan stared, nonplussed; he’d never really believed the stories of marsh lights and fairy lanterns and pwca, told in front of the fire with Nia dropping off to sleep beside him. But this brought those tales to mind, leaving traces in his eyes after the lights were extinguished.</p><p>Ifan turned his head, getting down to come up alongside Delia and soothe her with a pat to the neck and some whispered words. As he did, he turned back to the castle and the place where the waterfall thundered beside it, and realised something; the lights were thickest up there, brighter and closer together than in the dizzying curve of the valley below him.</p><p><em>Nettie</em>, he thought with alarm. She was still up there. Whatever was happening – whatever fearful force Sir Frederick and his guests up in the castle had called upon themselves – then Nettie might be in danger.</p><p>And with that the choice was clear. Getting back into the driver’s seat, he tugged Delia’s reins and turned the coach around, beginning to retrace his path back up to the gates.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0024"><h2>24. Chapter 24</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Charlotte folded her arms, leaning sideways to peer over at her husband’s workbench. “I don’t know what you’re wasting your time with those little contraptions for, Frederick,” she said.</em>
</p><p>“<em>You know what it is I seek, my dear,” he said, not looking up from his work. “An exception to the very laws of energy and heat themselves! I feel it is within my grasp!”</em></p><p>“<em>Yes, I know you want to rewrite the laws of physics,” sighed Charlotte, stretching in her chair, rolling out her shoulders and coming to stand behind him. “But Frederick, think of what we have. With this remarkable engine at our disposal–”</em></p><p>
  <em>At this, Frederick stood up too, flipping up the magnifying lens over one eye to stare her down as he drew himself up to his full height. “Must we really have this conversation again? It is not an engine but a toy, Charlotte, and a broken one at that. Won’t you see sense, and turn your considerable intellect to greater purposes?”</em>
</p><p>“<em>On the contrary, I think that this has potential, Frederick. You know my theory.”</em></p><p>“<em>God help me, yes you’ve told me your... </em><span>theory</span><em> about it being from another world.”</em></p><p>“<em>The nodes are of no material we have been able to identify. The spectral irradiance–”</em></p><p>“<em>Is unlike any spectrum known to the scientific establishment, yes.” </em></p><p>“<em>You think it fanciful.”</em></p><p>“<em>I think you have been reading too much of the tales published by Monsieur Verne. Leave them for the children, Charlotte. Help me in my endeavours, instead.”</em></p><p>
  <em>She frowned. “You think my head full of tall tales, yet you try to break the laws that govern the universe?”</em>
</p><p>“<em>Following in the footsteps of many great men, yes. I do not concern myself with broken things, but in the great and noble machinery of the cosmos itself.”</em></p><p>“<em>It is not </em><span>broken</span><em>–”</em></p><p>
  <em>He sighed, patiently. “It does not work. It was broken when we found it.”</em>
</p><p>“<em>Well, perhaps I have a mind to fix it,” she said, folding her arms and not backing down. </em></p><p>“<em>Very well,” said Frederick, with a slight smirk as he flipped the magnifying lens back into place. “You shall have your project, and I shall have mine.”</em></p><hr/><p>Alice had already picked the locks on the desk drawers and the first few filing cabinets – very neatly and efficiently, Ianto had to grudgingly admit – and had begun going through the papers before they came in. But there were a <em>lot</em> of papers to go through, a whole wall of filing cabinets. Ianto was terribly conscious that Carrington might come back here at any moment, or even Watkins, who was presumably still looking for them.</p><p>Still, he put the fear out of his mind for now; they’d been caught off guard, backed into a corner last time, but if Watkins came back he was sure the three of them could take him together. And this was too good a resource to pass up. Somewhere in amongst all these papers was the key to saving Jack, and, he could only hope, to getting home.</p><p>And so he threw himself into searching; this, at least, was familiar territory, paperwork and filing. In any other circumstances, Ianto knew he’d probably enjoy this. Especially with Jack to keep him company. Then again, if it was his own Jack they might well have distracted one another and taken an unscheduled break by now, but he forced himself to put thoughts like those aside.</p><p>Besides, he couldn’t shake the discomfort at working with Alice, her words and Jack’s and the things they had implied running again and again through his head.</p><p>Thus, Ianto was finding it a little hard to concentrate on going through stacks of papers as Alice popped open another filing cabinet.</p><p>It was at this point that Jack spoke, peering at a sheaf of papers laid out on the floor on the other side of the room.</p><p>“Oh, wow. Now that’s something you don’t see everyday. Especially in this century.”</p><p>“What?” demanded Alice. “What have you found?”</p><p>Jack merely tilted his head, putting a bunch of papers on the desk and waiting patiently as Ianto and Alice peered at them.</p><p>“What is this contraption?” said Alice, tilting her head.</p><p>“Something that <em>really</em> shouldn’t be here,” said Jack, frowning.</p><p>“These plans...” Ianto said, looking at the diagram. “This looks almost like the Rift Manipulator… is it possible Carrington could have got hold of Torchwood tech?” he realised both Alice and Jack were staring at him. “What?”</p><p>“Rift… <em>manipulator</em>?” said Alice, her eyes boring into him, filled with a light of fascination.</p><p>“Yes, doesn’t it look quite similar to the one in the Hub?” said Ianto, turning a blueprint on its side. “The central column, the sliding… bit...” he grimaced, at his own lack of technical knowledge; as long as he’d been at Torchwood Three, all but the most basic startup and use of the Rift Manipulator had been Jack’s responsibility, with Tosh helping him with regular maintenance and diagnostic checks; since she’d died, Jack hadn’t yet made any move to delegate those particular responsibilities to either Ianto or Gwen, which Ianto was secretly a little relieved by.</p><p>“Ianto, this isn’t Torchwood tech,” said Jack slowly, frown deepening, staring at Ianto as though he’d just realised something. “There’s definitely nothing like this in the Hub. At least...”</p><p>“...Not yet,” finished Ianto, drawing in a breath as the implications hit him. He peered at the pieces of paper, which Alice had taken in her hands to look at closely. “May I see?”</p><p>She turned to look at him, hesitating just long enough to make him think that maybe she would refuse, before she handed the notes over. “If you can make anything more of them, oh wise time traveller, please do tell.”</p><p>Ianto bit back a sharp retort and took the papers from her.</p><p>To his dismay, however, the notes were extremely dense and technically detailed.</p><p>“<em>Pairwise remotely connected spatial locii</em>…” he read, skimming the notes, paging through, “<em>positionally distributed according to a Gaussian probability distribution originating at the the core</em>… <em>weakly coupled to an unknown energy source</em>... <em>fluctuation dissipation timescale is determined probabilistically and obeys a power law with empirically determined exponent</em>...” he put down the sheaf of notes. “What does it mean, in practice?”</p><p>“It means, as far as I can tell,” said Jack, scanning the notes over Ianto’s shoulder, “that Carrington’s built a machine that can use Rift energy to open small, temporary portals at random in the surrounding area, linked up randomly to other locations within its range. But this is way beyond this era...” his eyes lit up, as he skim-read, peering intently at a blueprint. “In fact, yeah, here, look! These little things...” he pointed to some small, innocuous looking polygonal attachments around the rim of the machine. “Spatio-temporal locator nodes. An old and clunky model maybe… should have way more nodes, so if it didn’t kill you the trip would be rough as hell, but I’d know those things anywhere. Very commonly used in early human-designed time travel devices, that used the energy of an existing spatio-temporal disturbance to punch through the fabric of time and space. Later all but banned for violating spatio-temporal integrity preservation laws.”</p><p>“Carrington’s built a <em>time machine</em>?”</p><p>“Even that’s a stretch. It’s crude form of time travel and teleportation, cobbled together from future scrap.”</p><p>“So the Rift theory is looking more likely by the minute,” said Ianto.</p><p>Alice nodded. “According to our research, Carrington spent some time in Cardiff, in the mid-1880s, just before he married and moved his household here,” she said. “It is perfectly possible, I should think, that he discovered some piece of machinary not of this world.”</p><p>“Shouldn’t you know that?” said Ianto. “I mean, you are Torchwood.”</p><p>Alice shot him a glare. “First of all, I, personally, was not yet with Torchwood at the time. Secondly, we have no way of predicting when the Rift will open and close, nor what detritus may fall through. ...I comfort myself in this deficit, however, with the knowledge that <em>I</em> have neither fallen through the Rift myself nor allowed one of my colleagues to do so.” She gave him a frosty smile. “So please, Mister Jones, do not presume to lecture me about the Rift and its workings.”</p><p>“Oh, I don’t presume anything,” said Ianto coldly, glaring back. “In fact–”</p><p>“Right, well,” said Jack, rather hastily, stepping in between the two of them and taking the papers from Ianto, “there’s an obvious problem here, right?”</p><p>Ianto blinked. “What?”</p><p>“What?” said Alice.</p><p>“The power source. This machine… it’s supposed to operate off the Rift. But we’re not on the Rift.”</p><p>“So… why is it working?”</p><p>“My guess? The components that Carrington found were already coupled to the Rift after falling through, and still able to tap into it as a power source. Bring them all the way out here, and it’s running on low power mode. And it still doesn’t have nearly enough nodes.”</p><p>“So...”</p><p>“So, it probably wouldn’t be capable of time travel; that takes way more power than just teleporting a short distance through space.”</p><p>“Carrington has turbines set up, to harness the power of the waterfall,” interjected Alice. “Would it be enough?”</p><p>“I don’t know. I guess it could be possible for brief periods. But keeping a long term portal open, or any time travel? No, I don’t think so.”</p><p>Ianto frowned, as a horrible suspicion hit him. “Jack,” he said. “I think I know why he needs you.”</p><hr/><p>Gwen peered up through a metal grate, holding a finger to her lips as she met Nettie’s eyes. Not that she thought Nettie was going to yell out; she seemed to have been stunned into silence, eyes wide and horrified.</p><p>And honestly, Gwen didn’t feel much better herself. Because now she could see what was going on above, on the rough wooden platform that had been erected near the strange column of brilliant golden light.</p><p>On it was a sort of frame or cradle-like chair, wired up with heavy rubberised cables. Strapped down to the frame was Jack.</p><p>He was slumped unconscious – or dead? It was hard to tell from this distance – his head lolling down onto his chest, skin blackened and his clothes and hair singed, wrists horribly burned and blistered, the flesh raw and shiny where the solid metal cuffs made contact. Smoke curled off his body, rising into the high stone vault.</p><p>As they watched, the figure of Frederick Carrington walked in front of him to some sort of console and took hold of a lever, easing it down.</p><p>As he did, the machine glowed brighter, shining gold once more. Sparks flew in small, erratic bursts, the very air filled with charge, making Gwen’s hair stand up at the back of her neck; the whole room seemed to thrum with it, coupled with the constant vibration of the waterfall all around them.</p><p>A moment later though, Gwen saw Jack gasp back to life, rattling his bonds.</p><p>And as he did sparks burst from the surrounding machinery, an explosion of energy that shook the room. Nettie really did gasp out this time, hand flying to her mouth; not that Gwen was worried anymore about the sound giving them away, because Jack was screaming, crying out in pain in a way that cut to Gwen’s heart.</p><p>But she could barely hear him either, because at the same moment there was a screech like a failing girder, a smell of hot metal, and the space beside the machine split open in a blinding tear of gold.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0025"><h2>25. Chapter 25</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jack met Ianto’s gaze, seeing his forehead crinkle with concern. And it <em>was</em> concern, he realised, not for the first time today. Jack was still having trouble getting used to it, still didn’t entirely trust it. But, by all appearances, there it was right in front of him.</p><p>Then again, Ianto did know him in the future, Jack remembered. Whatever he’d done to leave such an impression on the young man – and he had some ideas, but he didn’t want to be getting his hopes up too much, not when he had so long to wait – it must be long in his future.</p><p>Yes, Ianto must just be safeguarding his own version of Jack. That was all, Jack told himself.</p><p>His thoughts were interrupted by Alice, looking rather intrigued. “So, then, the reason for Carrington’s pursuit of Harkness is… for what? To use his unique ability as some sort of… dynamo engine?”</p><p>“It seems likely,” said Ianto grimly.</p><p>“But this is perfect!” said Alice. “Despite a few mishaps along the way...” she gazed pointedly between the two of them, “Torchwood may still win the day. We have simply to go down to Carrington’s laboratory, observe the action of the machine, and take it for Torchwood’s property. All the easier, if its design is based on objects from another world; <em>if it’s alien, it’s ours</em>, as the saying goes.”</p><p>Ianto’s brow creased a little. “True,” he said, “but what about Jack? Currently, a version of him from the twenty-first century is being used as a human battery to power that thing. We heard him screaming.”</p><p>“Oh, yes, of course,” said Alice, waving her hand dismissively. “You can take your version of Harkness and go. Perhaps if, as you claim, this machine can open the Rift and allow time travel if properly powered, you may test the device’s capabilities to return the two of you to your proper place.” She nodded at Jack. “You even have a ready power source to hand.”</p><p>“Hey, are you implying what I think you are?” said Jack. “Don’t I get a say in...” he tailed off, as Ianto turned to look at him. “Actually, you know what? If it means you can get home–”</p><p>“<em>What?</em>” said Ianto, looking caught off guard. “No! I don’t want you to suffer for my sake, Jack. We’ll find another way.”</p><p>Alice shrugged. “Suit yourself. It is of no concern to me what you do with yourself, as long as you are no longer in my way.” She folded the papers, and tucked them into the pocket of her dress. Ianto’s eyes followed them, but he made no move to stop her as she knelt calmly back on the floor and began going through drawers once more. “Which, currently, involves finding a way into the laboratory, so if you please, I should like to carry on looking for the combination to unlock the door.”</p><p>“We’ll help,” said Jack, nodding.</p><p>Ianto simply sighed, and rolled his eyes, but did not protest.</p><p>For a little while longer, they fell into silence once more as they rifled through the drawers.</p><p>Finally, Ianto straightened up. Jack caught the motion out of the corner of his eye, seeing Ianto poring over another stack of notes.</p><p>“You found something?” Jack came up and put his hand on Ianto’s shoulder blade.</p><p>Ianto darted an almost surprised gaze at him, as though caught off guard by the touch, but recovered quickly. “Some more notes. They were in a hidden compartment at the bottom of the desk drawer. I only found the catch by chance.” He showed Jack a tiny groove in the wood. “See, you have to slide your fingernail in like this.”</p><p>“Ooh, mysterious. Anything interesting?”</p><p>At this Ianto glanced at Alice, as though he had half a mind to try to keep it from her. But a moment later he sighed, pushing the notes across the table.</p><p>“Earlier designs for the same machine, I reckon,” said Ianto, as Jack looked down past his shoulder. “See the date? January 1893. Funny thing is, they’re written in different handwriting.”</p><p>“Yes, by all accounts Carrington used to work with his wife Charlotte, acting as his laboratory assistant,” said Alice. “Those are probably her notes, but she died six years ago. Now, do you have anything useful to say, or may we return to the task at hand?”</p><p>Ianto scowled, peering down at the notes. “I just thought it might be relevant,” he said, rather tartly. “Charlotte died in 1893, didn’t she? There was an outbreak of typhoid in the area. She and her children got sick and died.”</p><p>“Yes, there was certainly an outbreak. Though some of the servants will tell you different about whether it killed Charlotte,” said Alice. “There are all sorts of fanciful rumours about what happened to her.”</p><p>“And do you believe them?”</p><p>“I don’t especially care for gossip,” said Alice. “Carrington may have murdered his wife and children with his own hands for all I care. All that matters to Torchwood is his invention.”</p><p>“...I see,” said Ianto, blinking.</p><p>“Except you’re wrong,” said Jack suddenly, catching sight of something over Ianto’s shoulder. “It <em>does</em> matter.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Look,” he said, pointing at a diagram. “Compare Frederick’s blueprints with Charlotte’s.” He gestured, and Alice, reluctantly, took the first set of papers from her pocket and smoothed them out on the desk.</p><p>“They’re the same,” she said.</p><p>“Almost,” said Jack. “There’s a small difference. Remember those spatio-temporal locator nodes? Well...”</p><p>“Charlotte’s machine has lots of them,” said Ianto. “Lots more than his, anyway. ...What difference would that make?”</p><p>“It means Charlotte’s design would <em>work</em>,” said Jack. “It would do what this machine does, but much better.”</p><p>“But if these designs are older, then why would he build a worse machine?” said Ianto. “Why use fewer nodes? ...Unless...” Jack saw the moment it dawned on Ianto, and on Alice at around the same time.</p><p>“Unless he no longer has them.”</p><p>“What if someone <em>took</em> them?”</p><p>They all looked at each other. A moment later, both Alice and Ianto reached out at the same time to grasp the pile of notes, colliding with one another and knocking the stack of papers off the desk.</p><p>The pile burst apart, leaves of paper fluttering down to the ground. One landed on Jack’s boot; a smaller slip of paper, folded in half.</p><p>He frowned, picking it up and unfolding it. It looked dog-eared and worn in a way that suggested it had been handled a lot, folded and unfolded and perhaps even crumpled and flattened back out again.</p><p>In the same handwriting is the older plans, it read:</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Dearest Frederick,</em>
</p><p>
  <em>With this missive, I declare victory in our contest. Since you appear to have no need or desire for the bounty we were granted all those years ago, I have taken the machine’s component parts to be installed in a more suitable location. While you have striven for the impossible, I have taken what was under our very noses and let it show me the truth; that there is so much more in the world, of which you could never dream. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Thus, I have no further need of you, or indeed your castle or fortune. I have access to much greater riches. I have the whole universe at my disposal, and I mean to explore it, and to teach our children of its ways, that they may surpass their father’s dullness. I am afraid you shall not see me, Ada, or Maxwell again. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>I wish you well in your studies.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Yours triumphantly, </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Charlotte. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Once they were finished reading, they all took a moment and stared at one another.</p><p>“Charlotte Carrington… is still alive?” said Ianto, after a moment.</p><p>“None of the servants saw her body, except Watkins,” mused Alice.</p><p>“Carrington’s fixer,” said Ianto. “He could have said anything to cover up the truth.”</p><p>Jack laughed, a little bemused. “Huh. Seems like Charlotte’s husband was too boring and self-absorbed, so she did a runner with alien tech they found. ...Is it so hard to just get a damn divorce in this century?”</p><p>“But the machine,” said Alice, ignoring him. “She simply could not have taken everything. For one thing, it would be too difficult to steal away in the dead of night with so much machinery, especially with her children in tow. And besides, he managed to make it work again.”</p><p>“After what, six years? My guess is she took the nodes, or most of them. He must have reverse engineered his version, with whatever scrap he had lying around,” said Jack.</p><p>“Well, in any case it hardly matters,” said Alice, eyes lit up. “This is Torchwood business. Even more so, now. The machine is ours for the taking.”</p><p>Ianto frowned at her. “Well, we still need to get into that lab...”</p><p>Alice grinned, holding up a small leather-bound notebook. “That should not be a problem.”</p><p>“Passwords.”</p><p>Alice nodded. “I found them in the cabinet on the far end while you two were making eyes at one another. So, if you’ll excuse me...”</p><p>Ianto glanced at Jack. Already, though, Alice had snatched the plans off the table, folding them and stuffing them into her pocket before bolting back towards the door as fast as she could go. A couple of seconds later, Jack was running behind Ianto, following her out of the office and down the stairs.</p><p>“Alice!” Ianto was shouting as they ran down the stairs, “wait! We need to plan, we need to take a moment to–”</p><p>But even as they came to the bottom of the spiral and burst out into the corridor, he saw Alice had stopped abruptly in the doorway. Ianto stumbled to a halt just in time to to avoid colliding with her, and Jack actually did collide with Ianto a little, nearly knocking him down before he righted himself at the last moment.</p><p>Alice had frozen under the arch, her gun raised and pointed at the man in front of them.</p><p>It was Watkins, who had just materialised in a nimbus of shining gold, penning them into the narrow stairwell at the base of the tower.</p><p>In the moment it took Jack to assess the situation, Watkins had drawn his gun, firing off a shot that would have hit Ianto, had he not lurched to the side, colliding with Alice. Instead the bullet hit the wall inches from Ianto’s head, striking chunks from the plasterwork.</p><p>Jack snarled, lunging out through the door at Watkins. He knocked the man to the ground, rolling them out into the carpeted corridor. But Watkins recovered well. Jack’s punch went wide as Watkins used his momentum to roll them, getting Jack in an arm lock against the far wall. Jack struggled violently, trying to reach for his gun which was still holstered at his side.</p><p>As he struggled he heard a shot ring out in the corridor, too loud for the space. Watkins jerked away from him, whirling to defend himself. At the same time, pain exploded at Jack’s side; the bullet had hit Jack’s abdomen, just by his left hip. Fresh blood was already beginning to bloom scarlet against the white of his shirt, below the mostly-dried stains from earlier. Jack doubled over in pain, winded, gasping with his body’s involuntary shock response and clutching at his stomach, to see Alice with her gun out, aiming it at the two of them once more.</p><p>She must have hit him by accident, in the fray. Or perhaps she didn’t really care either way, he thought as he sank down to knees. He was aware of his blood seeping out onto the carpet, a dark and spreading stain on the rich dark green.</p><p>“Hey! Over here!” yelled Ianto, snarling. As Watkins turned around to face him, Jack saw Ianto’s face filled with fury, there at his side to strike him across the jaw with the butt of his gun.</p><p>The savage blow laid Watkins out on the carpet, keeping him from shooting Jack in the head. But a moment later he was scrambling back to his feet again, the moment of disorientation apparently over as his hands flew to his wrist. Even as Ianto raised his gun again, Watkins disappeared in a bright burst of gold light; Ianto stumbled back, yelling out in equal parts alarm and frustration, just in time to avoid getting caught up in it.</p><p>At the same moment he disappeared, Alice took off running down the corridor, in the direction they’d come from. The direction they’d need to take to get to the corner of the cellars from which they’d come up, where they’d need to go again to get to the lab.</p><p>“<em>Wait!</em>” yelled Ianto, after her. For a moment he looked torn, as though he wanted to chase after her. But then he sighed, turning to Jack. He was breathing hard, as he offered his hand down to help him. “Can you stand up?” he fretted, inspecting the wound as Jack leaned against his side. “Do you think you’ll be able to heal from this as is, or are you going to have to–”</p><p>“I’ll… I think I’ll heal,” puffed Jack, hissing through his teeth at the pain and leaning heavily on Ianto’s shoulder. He knew what Ianto was going to ask; he was wondering whether this wound was bad enough to kill Jack, before it healed. Ianto looked like he feared the answer; Jack thought he understood. Bleeding out slowly would only waste their time, especially now Watkins knew where they were again.</p><p>“I… I think I’ll be fine,” he hissed, as much to convince himself as for Ianto’s sake. It still hurt a lot, but he let go of Ianto’s shoulder experimentally and found he could stand unaided; as he did so, the metal bullet fell from his hip and bounced to the carpet with a little bloody splash. “See?” he forced a grin. “Already… <em>oof</em>… healing!”</p><p>“...Okay,” said Ianto, not looking convinced. He was shifting apprehensively from foot to foot.</p><p>“And hey, nice work back there,” he said, as he steadied himself against the wall. “Hitting him in the face, I mean. You probably saved me a death, and us some time.”</p><p>Ianto shrugged, still apprehensive. “All in a day’s work.”</p><p>“Modest,” said Jack, grinning.</p><p>“I do try,” deadpanned Ianto. “Now, I hate to rush you, but if you can run I think we should follow Alice, just in case she tries to–”</p><p>But Ianto broke off, as they turned in the direction Alice had run off down the corridor, and saw that same golden light again, Watkins materialising once more.</p><p>“Oh. Nope!” exclaimed Ianto. “Maybe not!”</p><p>Jack grabbed Ianto’s sleeve, turning him around and yanking him away down the corridor in the opposite direction. “<em>Run!</em>”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0026"><h2>26. Chapter 26</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>And so, once again, they ran without looking back. But even as they ran along the corridor, before them there was a brilliant blaze of golden light. Ianto yelled, stopping short and dragging Jack back, wincing as Jack shouted out in pain from his still healing wound.</p><p>But even as they turned, running back in the other direction, there was that golden light in front of them again.</p><p>Before they’d been lucky, Ianto knew. They’d lost him for a while, but now Watkins had found them again he’d be much harder to get rid of.</p><p>“It’s no good!” said Jack, echoing his thoughts. “You can’t get away from a man who can teleport by running along a corridor!”</p><p>“Well then...” said Ianto, voice dropping as they ran back the other way, “we just need to do something… different!”</p><p>And with that, he flung his shoulder sideways at ninety degrees, into the nearest door. It wasn’t locked, but exploded inwards as they two of them rolled inside.</p><p>Righting himself quickly, Ianto looked around, for anything that might be more useful in a confrontation. They seemed to be in a spare bedroom, neat and long devoid of anyone living in it. Ianto’s eyes scanned the room, and for a moment felt an odd sense of déjà vu before shaking his head; he needed to concentrate, to think of a plan. For a moment he thought wildly of pulling Jack underneath the four-poster bed to hide, before dismissing the idea as childish.</p><p>Jack peered back out of the door, looking up and down the corridor. “He’s... gone?” he said, sounding bemused.</p><p>“That’s not reassuring,” said Ianto, frowning. “All he has to do now is wait around for us to leave.” He gritted his teeth, angry with himself for leading them right into a trap. “There’s only one way out.”</p><p>“Well, you know what they say,” said Jack, and Ianto could hear the slightly manic grin in his voice. “When life closes a door, smash the damn windows.”</p><p>“That’s not quite the expression I’ve heard,” said Ianto, but he walked over to the window, peering down into the courtyard and seeing they were two stories off the ground.</p><p>Jack came to stand beside him, peering down too.</p><p>“Jack,” sighed Ianto, exasperated, as he followed Jack’s gaze. “You are <em>not</em> throwing yourself out a window. Don’t even think about it.”</p><p>Jack pouted. “Aww.”</p><p>“You’d break all your bones.”</p><p>“They’d heal.”</p><p>“<em>I’d</em> break all <em>my</em> bones, trying to follow you.”</p><p>Jack grinned. “What’d you say if I promised to catch you in my arms?”</p><p>“I’d say you watch too much TV.”</p><p>“TV hasn’t been invented yet, future boy.”</p><p>Ianto sighed. “<em>No</em>, Jack,” he said firmly. “We’ll find another way.”</p><p>“Okay, fine! Just an idea,” said Jack. “You gotta admit, Watkins wouldn’t be expecting it.” He frowned. “D’you reckon Carrington told him I can’t die? Maybe we can use that somehow… turn him against his master, who hasn’t given him all the information?”</p><p>“Hmmm,” said Ianto, only half listening as he peered out the window, wondering vaguely if the bedsheets might make a half-decent rope. “What if–”</p><p>“Ianto! Look out!”</p><p>Even as he was about to turn and step back from the window, he felt Jack pulling him sideways, so hard his hip collided painfully with the table. He was about to yell out in protest when he saw what had alarmed Jack; a golden light was shifting into existence, in the place Ianto been just about to turn to. For a moment he tensed, ready to fight, before he realised that no one was stepping through the portal. It was just hanging there in the middle of the room; it looked dark on the other side.</p><p>Ianto winced as he realised how close he’d come to walking straight into it, or worse, half into it, stepping carefully back towards Jack. “Oh, I forgot those were still happening. Thanks.”</p><p>“No problem,” said Jack, whose hand had come up to the small of Ianto’s back and was just resting there. It was nice, Ianto thought vaguely. “And hey, we got lucky after all. Come on.”</p><p>“What?” Ianto blurted, as Jack pushed him towards the portal. “Wait, you want to go in there? We have no idea where it goes!”</p><p>“Neither does Watkins. But it’ll at least be somewhere in the valley… the range of the machine isn’t far, remember?”</p><p>“It could close on us halfway!” Ianto had a sudden vivid recollection of Jack’s fingers getting chopped off earlier. It wasn’t a risk he was keen to take.</p><p>Jack shrugged. “Maybe if we stand around chatting about it much longer.”</p><p>Ianto breathed out, trying to think rationally as he stared at the glowing portal in front of him. If they ended up down in the valley, that might not be so bad; he still felt a twinge of guilt for lying to Gwen, and it would definitely be nice to be out from under the looming threat of the waterfall.</p><p>But, he realised, he didn’t want to be back in the valley. He wanted to be here, to find some way to fix all this.</p><p>To help Jack.</p><p>“No,” Ianto decided, stepping back even as the portal began to collapse in on itself.</p><p>“Fine,” said Jack, as it dwindled to nothing. “Suit yourself. If Watkins gets bored waiting for us to leave this room, then–”</p><p>But he was interrupted once more, by a bright twist of gold. And this time, there really was a figure materialising out of it; Watkins again, his gun aimed at Ianto, who just managed to duck to avoid the bullet. Jack fired a shot, but Watkins dodged to the side and it shattered the mirror in the far corner, in a spray of silver.</p><p>Immediately, Ianto drew his gun too, but it clicked empty. He swore, dropping it and picking up the chair and swinging it at Watkins’s head. But Watkins was already gone in a flash of gold, leaving Ianto’s blow connecting with nothing, throwing him off balance. The chair caught the window instead and shattered it, letting in a rush of frigid night air that stirred the curtains. The leg of the chair snapped and Ianto hissed in frustration, throwing the chair at the place where Watkins had appeared.</p><p>It fell at his feet, doing nothing to change the fact that the man was now hemming them both in to the corner.</p><p>They were almost at an impasse here, with Jack and Watkins both with their guns drawn; Watkins’s was pointed at Ianto, keeping him transfixed in place, staring down the barrel and trying not to show his fear. Ianto only wished he had more ammunition, but there was no help for it now.</p><p>Still, Jack grinned, as he and Watkins stared each other down.</p><p>“Hey...” said Jack, as though trying to calm a wild animal, “hey, there’s no need to kill us, yeah? Your master wants us alive...”</p><p>“On the contrary,” said Watkins, fiddling with the strap at his wrist. He looked almost bored. “My master stated that he would prefer <em>you</em> alive, Captain, in order to understand your apparent double life, and ascertain which of you may be the imposter. As for Mister Jones... he indicated no preference. Especially if he were to cause trouble.” He cocked the gun, making Jack and Ianto both flinch. Watkins began to inch around, boxing them into a smaller space. “Whoever sent you to interfere in the affairs of this household, Mister Jones, for whatever purpose, I am certain they will grieve to learn that you had a tragic fall in the mountains upon your excursion to the countryside.”</p><p>Ianto could see Jack’s mouth twitch and his finger tense on his gun, wanting to shoot, but knew he was holding off only because of the risk to Ianto.</p><p>“If you touch him,” snarled Jack, low and dangerous, “I’ll put a bullet through your brain.”</p><p>Watkins merely raised an eyebrow in impassive silence, leveling his gun at Ianto as he boxed them into the corner. His pale eyes frightened Ianto, icy and unyielding.</p><p>“Got any clever escape ideas?” whispered Ianto nervously at Jack, as Watkins gained a little more ground on them.</p><p>“Well… don’t know about clever,” said Jack, grinning. “See what you think.”</p><p>It happened so fast, that it took Ianto as much by surprise as it clearly took Watkins, giving neither of them enough time to react.</p><p>In a flash, Jack had grabbed Watkins’s wrist, the one with the clockwork device. He pressed a button on it, and immediately a golden light began to form around the two of them. Ianto’s eyes widened, already starting to yell something cautionary at Jack, when he felt Jack grab him around the waist, arm firm and sure as he pulled Ianto into the portal too. At the same moment though, as the hole in space became fully formed, Jack let go of Watkins and kicked him savagely in the stomach, sending him sprawling back over the broken chair and against the bedframe.</p><p>Jack tugged Ianto close with both hands just as the portal started to collapse. Ianto was aware of screaming and holding onto Jack in absolute terror, fully expecting to be cut in half, or shot after all, or wiped out of time and space all together as the world faded around them into bright golden light, then darkness and cold and rushing noise, then–</p><p>Then they were falling together, onto hard ground. Ianto’s breath was knocked out of him as they landed, entangled, on some sort of cold, unyielding stone surface.</p><p>Jack made a noise, as Ianto realised their faces were very close once more. He drew back hastily, puffing out a cloud in the frozen outside air. “<em>That</em>…” he panted, as he extricated himself from Jack, “was one of the stupidest, riskiest things I’ve ever witnessed you do. And trust me, there’s a <em>lot</em> of competition.”</p><p>Jack gave a boyish grin, the moonlight catching his face as he holstered his gun again. “You gotta admit, it worked though,” he said, giving Ianto a concerned once-over. “Are you okay?”</p><p>“I have no idea how to answer that. I don’t think anything’s broken though, if that’s what you mean,” he said, his heartbeat and breathing starting to return to normal as he took Jack’s offered hand up.</p><p>“Good, because we can’t stay long,” said Jack, almost apologetically. “I used Watkins’s portal device to make that jump… it’s no vortex manipulator. I don’t know exactly how it works, but there’s a chance that he could recover the coordinates and come right to us.”</p><p>“Oh, well, that’s encouraging,” said Ianto, squinting around. They seemed to be in some sort of paved courtyard set into the rock. He could still feel the ever-present rumble of the waterfall through the flagstones under his feet, but in the moonlight it was hard to orient himself. “Where are we?”</p><p>“Outside?”</p><p>“Thanks, problem solved,” said Ianto; it came out rather more sarcastic than he intended, with the leftover adrenaline turning to growing unease. He walked over to the edge of the little courtyard space, surrounded by a sort of stone parapet. The moon shadows were too thick to see much detail, but in the corner there were a number of rusted pieces of metal that looked as though they’d once been some sort of machinery, no longer in use and left out to the elements. Indeed, it had very much the appearance of a scrap yard about it, he thought, except it seemed to be set into the bare rock of a craggy slope.</p><p>Ianto shivered suddenly, shifting from foot to foot. It was cold enough that already his extremities were starting to go numb. At one side there was a stone path that led out between outcroppings to what looked like a narrow flight of stone stairs, and what looked like a heavy mechanical goods lift. Ianto decided to avoid this, on the grounds that at least stairs didn’t rely on ropes and pulleys that could be tampered with from above. “Come on,” he said to Jack. “Only way out seems to be up.”</p><p>“There’s probably a metaphor in there somewhere,” said Jack. “I can’t quite get to it.”</p><p>“May I suggest the stairs,” said Ianto, making Jack chuckle grudgingly, though he followed behind him without protest.</p><p>They fell silent for a moment as they climbed, each lost in their own thoughts for a while. It was Ianto who broke the hush this time. “I was wondering,” he said to Jack. “About time travel.”</p><p>“Oh? What about it?”</p><p>“What happens if...” he licked his lips nervously, clasping his hands into fists to try to dispel the chill, “you try to change the past?”</p><p>“<em>Okay</em>, I’m gonna stop you right there,” said Jack immediately. From their position Ianto couldn’t see his face, but he sounded alarmed. “That’s dangerous talk, especially from a time travel newbie like you. That gets people killed.”</p><p>“Does it?” said Ianto curiously. “And no, don’t worry, I’m not going to try to change anything. I was just wondering. Hypothetically. What would happen, if you knew what the past <em>should</em> be, but just chose… to do something different.”</p><p>“You probably wouldn’t be able to. You definitely shouldn’t try.”</p><p>“What if you did, though?” said Ianto, genuinely curious. “What would actually <em>happen</em> if, say, for example, you saved someone you knew died?”</p><p>“Why that example?”</p><p>Ianto shrugged, glad Jack couldn’t see his face right now. “Got to choose something.”</p><p>“...Well, there’s the issue of what the <em>knowing</em> part means,” said Jack, after a moment. “Sometimes, what we assume we <em>know</em> about the past might not be true at all. It’s a major issue with inexperienced time travelers; you go back, hoping to fix something one way, and you do. But actually it happens another way after all, because you didn’t have complete information about the situation. To use your example, maybe the person you save from getting hit by a car walks around the corner and gets caught up in a bank robbery and shot down.”</p><p>Ianto frowned. “So the universe… what? Course corrects?”</p><p>“Sometimes. Or sometimes it turns out that the course was actually the correct one all the time, but you, without complete knowledge, thought it was wrong.”</p><p>“What determines whether it’s “<em>right</em>” or not?” said Ianto, his head starting to ache slightly. “That implies intent.”</p><p>“Oh, you wanna get philosophical about it?”</p><p>“Not especially.”</p><p>“Good, because that’s really not my area,” said Jack. “But if I had to make a guess I’d say… you. You determine it.”</p><p>“What? Me?”</p><p>Jack chuckled. “<em>You</em>, meaning, the conscious being doing the time traveling. Maybe not deliberately, but like it or not, your actions and the ways you interact with your own past write your future. It can cause all sorts of temporal mess. Trust me, it was my job to clean it up once.”</p><p>“I see,” said Ianto, even though he didn’t really. “Well, what about this. What about if you did something you knew contradicted what had happened already. To take the previous example… what if you wanted to save someone you knew died. But just to make sure, you traveled back, watched them die, then went back again and dragged them away at the last minute? What would actually happen?”</p><p>“A paradox,” said Jack. “Even if you were careful to avoid crossing your own timeline and triggering the Blinovitch limitation effect, you’d be doing something inconsistent with the factor that led you to choose to do it. That’s bad, bad stuff.”</p><p>“Yeah, okay,” said Ianto, “but what would actually <em>happen</em>?”</p><p>“Varies. In the least serious cases of causal disruption, basically nothing: there might be a little time distortion around the spot, but the irregularity will fix itself after a little while. ‘Course, as a time agent you don’t see many of those cases; we only got dispatched to deal with the more serious ones, the real causal clusterfucks. But not all of them are like that: it’s why you can time travel and be very, very unlikely to disrupt things just by breathing, or stepping on blades of grass. <em>Sometimes</em> it can have an effect – the butterfly effect, I think you call it in your time, right? Nice name, poetic – but most of the time, it’s improbable enough that changes that small don’t make any difference. In other words, time is tough... to a point.”</p><p>“And if you pass that point?” said Ianto; he was starting to get a little warmer from the climbing. “If it’s something big and significant?”</p><p>“If it’s a pretty small tear, in an otherwise temporally stable zone, then again, nothing too serious. Might get some nasties coming through to feed off the energy, like sharks smelling blood in the water. We call them Reapers.”</p><p>“That’s the <em>good</em> scenario?”</p><p>He heard the grimace in Jack's voice. “Yep. It gets way more serious than that, especially in a place where space-time is already fragile.” His voice turned rather stern. “Like near a Rift. Time would tear like wet paper.”</p><p>“Jack, I told you, this is all hypothetical,” he said. “What do you mean, <em>tear</em>?”</p><p>“In the worst case scenario, the fabric of reality would split open under the strain. It turns itself inside out along the faultlines, and starts sucking everything into the void. Beyond a certain point there’s no way to stop it, only damage control. All you can do is contain it in its own time-locked bubble universe before it spreads.”</p><p>Ianto blinked. “Yep. That sounds bad.”</p><p>“The conventional wisdom is that no one person’s life is worth the risk of that,” said Jack, grimacing. “People have tried, of course they have. People are always people, and give them access to time travel, they will always go back and try and save the ones they love. But the chances of it working are so low that we don’t have a single reliably documented case of anyone pulling it off. What we do have, is lists and lists of those who have died.”</p><p>“Best avoided then,” agreed Ianto hastily, and they fell into silence for a moment more, contemplative this time.</p><p>“Ianto?” came Jack’s voice from behind him.</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“Is there a reason you’re asking me all this?”</p><p>“Um.” Ianto frowned, thinking of waterfalls and the historical record, of the slow path and a century’s worth of suffering and waiting. Of things that hadn’t happened yet, the world hanging so precariously in the balance.</p><p>“Ianto…?”</p><p>“Jack, the thing is...” he bit his cold lip.</p><p>But before he could decide what to say, he saw the top of the stairs approaching. “Oh,” he said. “Look, we’re nearly there.”</p><p>He heard Jack begin to protest from behind him, but the moment was gone, so Ianto forced himself to focus on the present once more. The less said about the future the better, he reasoned.</p><p>“I reckon we can’t be far from the castle,” said Ianto, speaking over Jack’s protest as they emerged at the top of the stairs. “I think we’re still pretty high up, and–”</p><p>He broke off, as the passageway opened out to reveal the sprawling view before him. And all of a sudden, he knew exactly where he was.</p><p>He was on the opposite side of the river from the courtyard in front of the castle, the space spanned by a long bridge of stone, an access corridor for the vast turbines built below it.</p><p>The turbines that were built into the waterfall, hurling itself ceaselessly over the cliff to crash in almighty torrents into the valley, far below.</p><p>The bridge itself was about wide enough for two people to walk abreast, with waist-high parapets on either side. The entire thing was slick with spray, almost glowing in the cold light of the moon. For a long moment Ianto simply stared, wide-eyed, his heart racing and his shallow breaths puffing out in frigid bursts as he stepped out onto the bridge.</p><p>Jack came up behind him, stopping just short of bumping into his back. “Whoa,” he said, “nice view. ...Hey, are you okay? Not scared of heights, are you?” He came up beside Ianto and grinned, slipping his hand into his and interweaving their cold fingers, beginning to lead Ianto out along the bridge. “C’mon. It’s not far. Just hold my–”</p><p>But he broke off, as before them a golden light started to burst into being, out of which stepped the figure of a man with a gun.</p>
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<a name="section0027"><h2>27. Chapter 27</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Before Jack could get his bearings, Watkins was running towards them. Jack drew his gun and fired at him, but with a bright flash of gold he had already teleported beside Ianto, grabbing him around the waist and bringing him up to the parapet, gun pressed to his stomach.</p><p>Jack froze, meeting Ianto’s eyes. As obviously afraid as he was – and in the moonlight, Jack could see how wide Ianto’s eyes were, even from this distance – he was clearly thinking fast, weighing up his chances, making a plan.</p><p>Watkins brought the muzzle of his gun up and pressed it into Ianto’s chest, over his heart. Jack knew what a bullet would do at such a range; it would be a quick death, perhaps, but not a pleasant one.</p><p>And unlike him, Ianto wouldn’t come back from it.</p><p>Jack stepped forward along the bridge, towards the two men on the parapet.</p><p>“No closer,” said Watkins, holding up his hand. “Put down your gun.”</p><p>Ianto’s eyes flicked to Jack, trying to communicate… something. To reassure him, perhaps, but it certainly wasn’t working.</p><p>Nevertheless, Jack stayed still against his better judgement, though he did not lower his gun.</p><p>“Don’t move,” snarled Jack, eyes fixed on where the two of them stood on the spray-slick stone parapet . He was too far away, but he didn’t want to risk getting any closer, lest Watkins shoot Ianto, or push him off. “If you let any harm come to him, you better believe you and I are taking a little tumble down onto those rocks.”</p><p>Watkins didn’t even turn and look at him, still intent on Ianto. “Sorry. That won’t be happening. You’re to be taken alive, Captain Harkness.”</p><p>Jack felt desperate, a little hysterical; he needed to think, he knew, but panic was making it hard. “Oh-ho. Now you’re giving me something to work with,” he said, mind racing; maybe he could still drive a wedge between Watkins and Carrington, appeal to th is man’s curiosity. If Jack knew his type – a former bruiser, with little moral integrity of his own – then it was certainly possible he was looking for a better deal. Distraction was what he needed now, Jack knew. It was his only chance of saving Ianto; he could take whatever the consequences were later. “Because if your master told you not to kill me… it seems to me like he doesn’t trust you. Wanna know why?”</p><p>This time, Watkins did turn to face him, turning his cold, implacable gaze on Jack in the moonlight. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw Ianto take the chance to start to edge away, along the parapet. Jack was careful to keep his face neutral, to not show any reaction even though his heart was hammering in his chest.</p><p>He wasn’t used to this anymore, was the thing. The last time there had been someone else whose life he’d cared about so much was, well… Rose, and the Doctor. And look how that had turned out. After that – and the hard lessons about how his life now was, and would be for some time to come it seemed – he’d learned to close his heart off, to stop himself caring. Somehow though, in the course of an evening, Ianto had unlocked it again.</p><p>And now he was in danger, and Jack was going to help him no matter what it took.</p><p>Still, Watkins did not seem as distracted as Jack had hoped. “Not particularly,” he answered. “I am aware, Captain, that my master does not tell me all his business. I wouldn’t expect otherwise.”</p><p><em>Damn it</em>, thought Jack.<em> Time for plan B</em>. He grinned, to try to cover his fear, preparing to strike when the moment came. He’d caught Watkins off guard once before; it would certainly be harder a second time, but with the right timing it might just be possible to knock him off balance. Of course, Jack would have to go over the waterfall with him, but that was okay if it meant Ianto was safe . “Just thought it might interest you,” he said, offhand, “to hear that–”</p><p>But the words stuck in his throat, lungs turning to ice as several things happened at once.</p><p>Ianto, clearly, had had the same idea as Jack had. He moved fast, striking out at Watkins to grab for his gun hand. Jack could only watch in wide-eyed dread as Ianto grabbed his wrist and gave a violent twist . Even from this distance, Jack heard the man’s wrist click horribly; he dropped the gun in shock and Ianto wasted no time in kicking it away, over the falls.</p><p>Jack was already running, running towards them along the bridge as they fought precariously on the parapet. The distance between them felt impossibly long as Watkins recovered enough to grab Ianto by the front of his shirt, practically holding him over the brink, his feet barely balanced on the edge of the stone. Ianto’s eyes were wide with fear as Jack scrambled onto the parapet himself, yelling out Ianto’s name in fury and horror as he rose up to see–</p><p>Watkins let go, giving Ianto a push over the edge.</p><p>Ianto’s eyes met Jack’s as he fell. With the angle he was gone in a moment, out of Jack’s sight even before he hit the mist of spray rising up from the falls.</p><p>“<em>Ianto!</em>” Jack shouted, lunging forward along the parapet; but it was no good, Ianto was gone, disappeared over the edge of the waterfall. From the angle Jack was at, he couldn’t see where Ianto had fallen, but it was with a sinking feeling he knew there was no surviving a fall like that; even if Ianto didn’t fall on the rocks, he’s soon be pulled under by the torrent of the waterfall, or else the shock of the cold would have him gasping in lungfuls of frigid water.</p><p>Jack had died by drowning before, was the thing. He knew first hand how unpleasant it was. Ianto didn’t deserve that; no one did, but, Jack was suddenly realising, over the single night he’d known him he’d grown to care fiercely for Ianto Jones, as little as he might known about him.</p><p>And with that came another realisation, following close on the heels of the other but a hundred times as horrible.</p><p>Ianto had said he knew Jack in the future; if this was Jack’s past for him, that meant his Jack – <em> Ianto’s</em> Jack, the version of him who had apparently lived all the way through a long, weary century and come out the other side – had always known how Ianto would die. He felt a wash of dread; just another thing he’d carry with him, then, another thing that was his fault, that he couldn’t change or fix no matter how much he tried, no matter how much blood he bled or how many deaths he died.</p><p>And suddenly, he felt rage boil up inside him. Rage at everything, rage at his own existence and all the people he had lost, would have to lose, before the eternity he’d been condemned to was up. He screamed out in fury, heedless of his balance on the narrow parapet, hurling his body at Watkins. He was going to go over the waterfall, like Ianto; they were going together.</p><p>But even as Jack lunged at him, Watkins’s hand was going to his own wrist, a bright bloom of gold enveloping him. By the time Jack barrelled into the empty space where the man had been a moment ago , his momentum was too great to stop him tumbling over the edge.</p><p>Jack screamed, losing his balance and falling into the icy torrent, the force crushing him as he plunged under the water, killing him before his body was dashed on the rocks below.</p><hr/><p>Ianto was shouting out to Jack as he fell, Jack screaming back and reaching for him. But it was too late, he’d fallen past the edge and was hurtling towards the black, crashing waters that would suck him down to his death – that was if the rocks didn’t smash his skull like an egg first, and maybe that would be a mercy compared to drowning – and he was in freefall, with no control as the wind whipped at his clothes.</p><p>He closed his eyes against the burn of tears immediately whipped away by the wind; in that split second he felt a great and wrenching sorrow. He was going to die, and then what would happen to Gwen and Jack? Both Jacks, really; time would be altered, or maybe it had been this way all along. Just like Jack had said, and as history had told him if he’d just been clever enough to listen.</p><p>And there was another thing: had Jack seen him die in 1899 and never told him, always knowing Ianto would be so fleeting, his time running down to this known point? Had he been lying about not remembering any of this? Surely not; Jack cared for him more than to keep that from him, Ianto knew he did. But then if Jack really didn’t remember this, then that was almost worse. Ianto had always hoped that when he died, it would be <em>for</em> something. That Jack would remember his life, remember who’d he’d been and how he’d loved him and hopefully find some solace in it.</p><p>Ianto had never even the chance to tell him he loved him. Or rather, he’d had many chances, and had let them all slip by.</p><p>All this passed through his mind in a split-second flash as he fell towards the deafening roar of water below, the spray like cold bullets on his back as he squeezed his eyes closed. Bracing for the frigid chill, the impact as he hit.</p><p>But it never came.</p><p>Instead the light grew brighter, a warm flare of <em>something</em> illuminating the insides of his eyelids. His eyes snapped instinctively open just in time to see himself surrounded by gold light too bright to look at, an expanding nimbus all around his body, and then–</p><p>Then he was being plucked from the air, out of the space his body had been occupying entirely. He had just enough time to be dazzled, squeezing his eyes reflexively closed again, as at the same moment as he had the nauseating experience of the direction of gravity apparently rotating at a ninety degree angle as his body was in freefall. But Ianto barely had time to yell out in alarm – of a completely different kind to a moment ago – before he was falling a few more feet onto what was, unmistakably, solid ground; a hard, cold, oddly springy surface against which he struck his head with a last burst of light, before all went black.</p>
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<a name="section0028"><h2>28. Chapter 28</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Alice ran down the corridor and along another hallway before ducking into a servant’s door, blood beating in her ears with the adrenaline of escape. It was only once she’d reached the bottom of the servant’s stair and made it down to the lower levels, that she pressed herself back up against the wall to listen, her heart in her mouth; it didn’t sound like anyone was following her. Watkins must be still busy chasing Harkness and Jones around, she thought; good. That would keep him occupied for a while, at least hopefully long enough for Alice to do what she needed to do.</p><p>She smiled, touching her hand over her pocket where she felt the rustle of the folded papers, the leather-bound journal with the combinations she needed noted down in it. Emily would be pleased with her work , she thought. Alice couldn’t wait to show her all this. If she was right, it would be a much greater prize for Torchwood than any of them had hoped for when they’d started this, and certainly worth Alice’s dull weeks spent undercover.</p><p>Still smiling, she headed for the cellars and the trap door that would take her down.</p>
<hr/><p>Gwen watched, transfixed, as the portal stabilised, hovering and glowing in front of the machine. It was still too bright to see much, but she could see the outline of the man staring up at it, as though waiting for something to happen.</p><p>And she could see Jack come gasping back to life; as he did, he screamed as sparks flew and he received another shock, jerking and spasming before slumping back in the chair again. It seemed to be automatic, she realised, Carrington no longer manually controlling the machine but poised in front of the portal expectantly while Jack suffered.</p><p>But as much as the sight hurt Gwen, she couldn’t help but notice something else; with the power surge as Jack came back to life, received a shock, and died again, the needles on all the monitoring dials had gone haywire, swinging wildly back and forth like a dropped compass. And as it had happened, the portal had gained form and solidity, no longer wavering and misshapen, but a firm oblong of shining gold.</p><p>And again, Jack gasped back to life. Each time, Gwen noticed, Carrington seemed to grow more animated, alternating between checking the machinery and the portal itself.</p><p>“What’s he doing?” breathed Nettie, obviously distressed. “Is that… is that Captain Harkness, again? How...” her brows crinkled up, tears coming to her eyes. “Oh, but Sir Frederick’s hurting him! We have to do something!”</p><p>“We will,” said Gwen, giving Nettie’s hand a squeeze. Even for her, who saw horrors every single day in her work, who had seen Jack dead and mutilated a hundred ways and seen him heal from it each time, this was very hard to watch. But she knew that as much as she wanted to, she couldn’t just charge in there; it might just electrocute her too, and she was even more wary of the portal hanging in the middle of the room, the crackling energy it was giving off.</p><p>And besides, there was something on the other side of it, she realised now as the popping, bubbling glow around it began to stabilise and stop throwing off flares , her eyes adjusting to the brightness.</p><p>Gwen squinted into it, having to blink and rub her eyes as she struggled to understand what she saw, part of her mind recoiling from the surrealism juxtaposition of it with the underground vault she was in.</p><p>On the other side of the portal was an elegant sitting room , with blue brocade drapery and a matching velvet chaise. The curtains were drawn over the windows and the gas lamps lit, illuminating the room with a soft glow that seemed dim in comparison to the vivid brightness in the laboratory and its crackling golden light.</p><p>In the room, wearing a pale grey silk dressing gown, was a woman with ash blond hair and a rather sever e frown on her face, her arms folded in what looked like mingled alarm and annoyance as she glared disdainfully down at Carrington, peering up through the portal.</p><p>“Frederick,” she said, tapping her foot. Her accent was English, upper class, her voice carrying though oddly distorted. Her eyes darted from side to side. “How did you find me?”</p><p>Beside Gwen, Nettie was staring, fascinated. “But… but that’s Mistress Charlotte!” she exclaimed, hushing herself quickly as Gwen gestured her frantically to keep her voice down. “Sorry! Sorry! But… how can that be? I mean, there were always rumours, that her death wasn’t like Mister Watkins said it was, but… oh, but she’s alive! I wonder if the children are too?”</p><p>Gwen just shook her head. “I don’t know, Nettie,” she said, conscious of Jack still slumped in place on the other side of the lab. “Look, I’m going to try to get across to Jack, while they’re distracted. I want you to stay here, okay? I need you to be my lookout. Just, uh… yell if anything bad seems to be about to happen.” Even as she said it she was aware of the irony; all of this was bad, absolutely all of it. “Y’know, um, comparatively.”</p><p>Nettie nodded, wide-eyed. “Of course.”</p><p>Gwen nodded too, gave her hand a last squeeze and edged around the side of the platform, amidst the thick bundles of rubberised cables that ran all around the outsides, snaking away in every direction. She kept low, ducking down behind piece s of machinery and ceramic insulated coils that thrummed with electricity, trying to get closer to Jack. She didn’t know what she was going to do when she got to him, but for now, she felt the instinctive pull to just get closer, to try to look for a way to get him out of there without getting electrocuted herself.</p><p>And always, she kept her eyes on the two people by the portal, keeping a hand on the handle of her knife. Frederick Carrington was a threat, she knew, but Charlotte Carrington was an unknown quantity.</p><p>Still, they were talking, having an argument it seemed. Gwen tuned it out, gingerly picking her way around the edge of the platform in the middle of the vault, on which most of the lab equipment stood. They’d come out of the short-lived portal, it seemed, underneath it, in the midst of a tangle of cables and pipes and ducts tucked neatly away underneath. On the other side of the platform though, Gwen spied an access ladder, close to where Jack was.</p><p>At last she was able to make it to the other side and climb onto the ladder – wincing as the still-unaccustomed bulk and stiffness of her dress and shoes and corset made climbing more awkward – and scrambled none too gracefully up.</p><p>She ducked down behind the metal frame to which Jack was strapped, peering gingerly over the top. It reminded her, vaguely but uncomfortably, of the cyber conversion unit she’d once been strapped to, and for a moment she was extremely glad that Ianto wasn’t here, for his own sake. Still, it only increased her resolve to save Jack, scanning desperately for some way to get him free.</p><p>Not that she could see much; his wrists, ankles, chest and head were pinned with iron bands, which seemed to be fastened by some sort of locks built into the structure. There were electrodes attached to his temples. She felt nauseous at the sight; how long had Carrington been planning this? She didn’t want to touch, not knowing which parts of the metal were live, but she ached to comfort Jack however she could.</p><p>Right now though he seemed to be dead, slumped as far to one side as his bonds would allow him. As she watched though, he gasped back to life, making her stumble back with the power surge, amplified by the coils all around and crackling through into the machine as Jack yelled out in renewed pain and fear.</p><p>“Jack!” hissed Gwen, making him whirl around as far as he could, so fast she saw him wince as he jarred his neck when the bonds would let him go no further. “Shh, shh, Jack! Look, don’t… please don’t scream, it’s me… it’s Gwen.”</p><p>“G...Gwen?” he rasped, loud enough to make her wince and duck down behind him. But it was alright, she saw; Carrington was still distracted, turned away from her. Gwen risked peeking up again and saw Jack had his head tipped back to look at her, in almost childlike confusion; he looked terrible, his eyes red-rimmed, his skin angry red and raw where it connected with the metal contacts , and shot through with purpling bruises all over. “Gwen...” he mumbled. “It <em>hurts</em>...”</p><p>“I know, Jack, I know.” Gwen fought back tears and forced what she hoped was a reassuring smile down at him, longing to be able to touch him but not quite daring to. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m here. And listen, I’m gonna get you out, yeah?”</p><p>“Please...” Jack’s bloodshot eyes slid over her, blurring in and out of focus. “Where’s Ianto…?”</p><p>“He stayed down in the village, remember?” said Gwen, electing not to tell him any more for the moment. She didn’t want to worry him unduly. “He’s safe. Only, I promised him I’d keep you out of trouble, see?”</p><p>Jack chuckled, and it sounded painful. “Good job so far.”</p><p>“Oi. Cheeky,” she whispered. “I’m trying my best here!”</p><p>“I know,” he said, voice cracking.</p><p>“Right, listen,” she said. “I’m gonna get you back to him, just like you said before. I’m gonna get you out of here, and then we’ll go find Ianto again, and everything’ll be okay. But you’ll have to help me out a bit, okay Jack?” she saw his eyes glaze over, and wondered if he was about to pass out, or die of some internal injury. “<em>Jack!</em>” she hissed. “Please, I’m so, <em>so</em> sorry but I need you to stay with me, just for a bit. I don’t know how to–”</p><p>At the same moment Gwen dropped back down out of sight , flinging herself away from the frame in alarm as it shocked him again, making him writhe and scream before going silent, limp and smoking.</p><p>Gwen gritted her teeth. This was going to be even more difficult than she’d thought.</p>
<hr/><p>Ianto came to slowly, clutching his head with a groan. He winced, his whole body feeling painful and tender as he shifted his limbs. Not to mention the disorientation: the last thing he remembered, he’d definitely been about to die, he was sure of it. But he wasn’t dead, was he? Mostly he just felt extremely cold, and rather bruised.</p><p><em>Oh</em>, he realised, that was because he was lying on hard, half-frozen grass, in the middle of a winter night. But why? For a moment he couldn’t remember, scrunching his face up as he tried to think.</p><p>Then it all came back at once, his breath catching in his throat as he remembered falling from the waterfall, falling through some sort of portal, which must have dumped him out here. But at least he was alive; his whole body hurt, but he hadn’t drowned. And he didn’t think anything was broken, at least. That was something.</p><p>Still, his muscles ached and protested as he sat up, then scrambled up to his feet, looking around. For a moment he was disorientated, before he realised he was still in the valley, just in a different place; to one side of him the river snaked in intertwining, moonlit ribbons along the flat ground of the valley floor.</p><p>Which was good, really. All he’d need to do to find Jack was to follow the river back to the waterfall, whose rushing torrent he could see from here. A moment later though, Ianto second guessed himself; there was no reason to assume Jack would still be there. He didn’t even know how long it had been. The moon had only moved in the sky a little he thought, so it couldn’t have been too long. But it wasn’t much to go on, especially since he hadn’t been paying much attention to it earlier either.</p><p>Where would Jack be? Was he still fighting Watkins on the parapet? Had he returned to the castle, or been dragged back there? Or had he gone over the falls like Ianto had?</p><p>He had no way of knowing. So, in the absence of anything else to go on, Ianto began to run, back towards the base of the waterfall. At least there he might be able to find some sign of what had happened.</p><p>By the time he reached the bank under the cloud of spray at the bottom of the falls, Ianto had gone from a run to a jog to a fast, limping walk, his bruised muscles protesting. It had been further than it had looked in the darkness, and he was exhausted and starting to shiver in the cold.</p><p>The bank was slippery, the grass giving way to a bit of stony mud before the moss-covered rocks that bordered the river began. The darkness and the spray and the frost on the ground, however, had turned everything treacherous, and several times Ianto nearly lost his footing. Still, he managed to avoid actually falling in as he scrambled along the rocks by the side of the water, the spray off the falls dampening his hair and flattening it down to his skull as he cast around for any sign of Jack.</p><p>He didn’t see anything, even if he edged out as far as he dared. “Jack?” he called out, and then again, and a few times more for good measure, but there was no reply; even if Jack was here somewhere, Ianto thought, he could barely hear his own voice over the roar of the falls above him.</p><p>He frowned, wondering if it might be better to try somewhere else – to climb up the switchback and return to the castle, or start the walk along the valley floor to the village – when he saw it.</p><p>It was barely anything really, and he nearly missed it; a flash of something paler than the black water, just under the surface. Still, his eyes flickered to it. It was near some stones that loosely spanned the broad part of the pool, close to the waterfall. They looked old, older than the solidly built stone platforms and turbines above at least. These were more like large, worn boulders that had been placed there as stepping stones, just a little too far apart for a comfortable stride. As well as that, several were missing, maybe rolled away or sanded down by the rushing current with no one who wanted to maintain them.</p><p>Still, Ianto didn’t waste a moment in heading out towards them, jumping out from the mossy bank to the nearest stone, and then the next one, with barely a wobble. The one after that was missing, but from where he was he now had a vantage point on what he’d seen in the water before, that shape in the corner of his eye.</p><p>He caught his breath, as he recognised the flapping cape of Jack’s Ulster, paler grey under the dark water.</p><p>Jack was there, limp and dead in the water, his body caught between two adjacent rocks as the current swirled around him.</p><p>Ianto felt a pang as he imagined Jack coming back like that, trapped under the water; from the position, it looked as though the way the current eddied was keeping Jack trapped there too.</p><p>Ianto bit his lip, trying to think of what to do. If he could just get to Jack, perhaps he could stretch out his arm into the water and try to free him. It was hard to tell, but it didn’t look like Jack was very deep down; Ianto thought he could easily pull him out, or at least offer Jack his hand to grab onto when he came back to life.</p><p>Still, there was the problem of getting there in the first place. The next stone was missing, the black water rushing and swirling, still forceful and chaotic from being hurled over the falls. Suddenly, every story Ianto had heard about people drowning in fast currents came back to him; he’d always had a dread of such things. As a child – and once or twice as an adult too – he’d had nightmares about being crushed under the black weight of water, squeezing the life from his lungs.</p><p>But then again, that would be exactly what would happen to Jack, if he came back under the water. Trapped there like that he’d only drown again, and again and again, however long it took to dislodge him.</p><p>There was no help for it, Ianto decided. All he had to do was nudge him out into the current, and hopefully then Jack should be washed downstream, away from the waterfall to where it would be easier to swim. Then Ianto could just meet him on the bank. And besides, he was sure he could jump the distance; two stones was nothing.</p><p>Ianto breathed in and then out again , trying not to think of the other possibility lest he lose his nerve entirely. He’d already cheated death once today; he wasn’t afraid, he told himself as he got ready to jump, throwing his weight into the leap.</p><p><em>For Jack</em>, he thought as he flung himself into the air.</p><p>Once again, the moment seemed suspended for eternity as Ianto jumped, the roar of the waterfall ever-present above him now, rather than below. His foot collided with the stone, the impact jarring its way up his leg, through his cold-stiffened muscles. He landed, braced… and <em>slipped</em>.</p><p>Ianto felt the world tilt, as his foot slid out from under him on the slick stone. He was aware of screaming again, in sudden fear; <em>no, no no, not like this, he was supposed to have survived</em>. Time was resilient, and the past didn’t have to bind him, at least not every time. Jack had told him that, and Ianto had to believe it was true.</p><p>And yet even as he thought this he was falling, crashing down off the wet stone and into the water, its frigid mass hitting him like a solid wall. Immediately his muscles seized up with the cold shock, refusing to obey him even as he tried to swim against the strong current.</p><p>The water pulled at him, his brain too disorientated with the cold and the falling and the swirling water to do much beyond flail in the current; he wasn’t even sure which way up he was, his body numb and screaming at him all at once, clothes dragging him down. Or maybe that was the undertow, Ianto thought, something he’d once read about waterfalls coming to his mind unbidden.</p><p>What he couldn’t remember was how to escape it, so perhaps he would drown, perhaps his body would float down the river and wash up in the mill race to be reported on in the next morning’s local paper, and Gwen would feel so terribly guilty after all, and Jack… Ianto’s heart ached for Jack as the water pressed in on his chest, his mouth opening to let in the icy burn of it because he couldn’t hold out any longer, and–</p><p>And he felt arms around his chest, pulling him in some direction, and a moment later he was breaking the surface to a roar of sound, spilled onto his back on something hard like a landed fish. For a moment he just lay there, stunned, and in that moment he saw a shape loom over him, heard someone calling his name as though from very far away. Not that he could answer; his lungs were full of water, vision blurring at the edges. In that frozen instant he lay there he saw Jack’s face come close to his, felt a strong pressure on his chest. Jack’s lips were coming down to meet his as though to kiss the life back into him, and for a moment Ianto forgot it wasn’t <em>his</em> Jack, but the other Jack, or maybe they were one and the same, maybe they always had been.</p><p>Because he remembered this, it had happened before, lying on the side of the tide pool in the Hub. But before Jack’s mouth could meet his again, Ianto’s body’s reflexes kicked in, making him gasp and cough up a gout of river water, spraying them both with it as he rolled over, choking and spluttering on the muddy grass. He groaned, the water burning in his nose and throat as it came up, eyes running, his whole body shaking. Jack’s arms were around him though, his hand rubbing small circles on Ianto’s back as he threw up water.</p><p>“There you go. You’re fine. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”</p><p>“Ugh.” Ianto wiped his face with his soaked sleeve, shuddering in earnest and rolling onto his back again, utterly exhausted from coughing up river water. Jack loomed over him, pulling him into his lap; Ianto blinked up at him, the moon behind Jack’s head leaving a too-bright half-circle in his eyes.</p><p>“Why did you do that?!?” Jack was saying, a frown on his face, his voice pitching up in his alarm. “You could’ve died!”</p><p>“You...” mumbled Ianto.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“<em>You</em>.”</p><p>“<em>Ianto!</em>” Jack gasped, obviously trying hard to maintain his composure, frozen breath puffing out into the air and mingling with Ianto’s. “Well, it doesn’t matter. We can’t stay here, it’s December, you’ll die of hypothermia if we don’t...” Jack patted his cheek none too gently, trying to get his attention. “Ianto! Listen to me!”</p><p>But Ianto’s head was too fuzzy to really pay much attention to what he was saying; all he could think was that he needed <em>Jack</em>, right now. The matter of a hundred-odd years of missing time seemed small in the face of that.</p><p>And so before he could think any further he had already reached out and grabbed the collar of Jack’s wet coat, pulling him closer again; it seemed to take him by surprise, but he went without resistance, so they were almost face to face, water pooling and dripping off Jack’s hair and nose and chin onto Ianto.</p><p>“Ianto… are you lis– <em>mmph</em>.”</p><p>Jack’s words were cut off as Ianto raised his head, enough to span the short distance to kiss Jack’s parted lips. A moment later Jack was kissing him back, fierce and desperate, and Ianto felt a rush of warmth, or relief, grasping fistfuls of the wet wool of Jack’s coat and shivering convulsively against him; for all the years that separated them, there was a large part of <em>this</em> Jack that was the same as <em>his</em> Jack. He could feel the familiarity of the man he loved as he crushed their chilly lips together, cold noses knocking clumsily in between.</p><p>Heat radiated from the place where their lips met, but Ianto still shivered, deep shudders that wracked his entire body in Jack’s arms. After a long, trembling moment, Jack drew back, staring at Ianto with eyes turned to thin bands of icy blue in the moonlight, pupils wide with fascinated, hungry adoration and lust.</p><p>And perhaps Ianto would have pulled him down again, and had him right there on the riverbank, if there had not been a shout from behind Jack, from the direction of the village. Already they could see lamps approaching, people running along the bank towards them.</p>
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<a name="section0029"><h2>29. Chapter 29</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warning for some slightly more intense violence in this chapter.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nettie stared through the small gap between two pieces of machinery, transfixed by the scene playing out before her.</p><p>“See?” Sir Frederick was saying, eyes blazing as he stared up at Charlotte. “See my work, Charlotte. You doubted me, but I have achieved it; this man, this creature, is not of this world, but he will live until the ending of the universe. He is indeed the essence of perpetual motion, made flesh. And now he powers our machine.”</p><p>“<em>My</em> machine,” said Charlotte, rather sternly. “If memory serves, you took little interest in it, while <em>I</em> made it work.”</p><p>“Then is this not the perfect synthesis of our endeavours?” he beseeched, eyes blazing as he reached through the portal to take her hands in his. “See how the current feeds through his body, carried by his nerves. It kills him, and when his life returns to him – by what mechanism I have yet to understand – there is a surge of some great power within him, some power not documented by any of the academicians who have gone before! This may be converted into an electrical discharge, greater than that which I apply. It feeds back into the system, ramping up the machine by increments, allowing me to maintain the portal. Is it not wondrous, Charlotte? It has allowed me to find you again. And this portal is just the beginning. Once you help me refine the system, once you give me back the nodes you stole away with by night–”</p><p>“What makes you think I shall do any such thing?” interrupted Charlotte, drawing her hands back from his touch.</p><p>He looked incensed. “The nodes – and the machine as a whole – are mine by rights, as is all your property.”</p><p>“You did not seem to want them before. You showed little interest in my experiments.”</p><p>“The situation has changed,” he snapped. “I have seen the light, Charlotte. I did not understand the possibilities before, and now–”</p><p>“Now, you would torture some poor wretch to realise your vision,” she said, raising an eyebrow.</p><p>He sighed. “Come now. The deaths of men like him are the cost of progress, Charlotte. You know this. They die, in the work of mining, of manufacture, of industry, and for the glory of her Majesty and the Empire. It is the natural way of the world, that allows those like you and I to prosper.” He held up a hand, interrupting her before she could get out a reply. “I <em>know</em> you are not a sentimental woman, Charlotte… you married me knowing exactly where my wealth came from, and had no quarrel with it then.”</p><p>“Perhaps,” said Charlotte, her jaw tight and furious. “Perhaps when I was a young woman, barely more than a girl full of ambition for something greater, I was able to look away from that which I had never seen up close. Now I have seen more of the world, more than you could possibly imagine.”</p><p>His lip curled. “And now you think yourself better than me?”</p><p>“I think...” said Charlotte, holding her gaze perfectly steady, “that I have a perfectly good life without you, thank you. Our children are better off for being able to see the great expanse of the cosmos, and for growing up away from a man like you.” She smiled, eyes alight. “Oh, the <em>wonders</em> out there in the universe, Frederick. The century is about to turn, but in a hundred years more the human race will have traveled away from the Earth entirely! Men walk upon the moon, and travel by metal ships through the air is as normal as the railways. Women, too! Humanity cures sicknesses, does great wonders. A hundred more years, and we are traveling beyond the solar system, living out there, making our homes among the stars. Industry poisons the planet, and there are terrible things, wars across the whole Earth, weapons more fearful than you could imagine. But the human race adapts, survives, and cares for one another. There is cruelty, there is exploitation, yes, as there always has been. But there is also brilliance… there always will be. And that is the reality I would raise Ada and Maxwell to, Frederick. We have no need of dreams of perpetual motion machines… the endless ongoing march of humanity, of the cosmos itself, is more than wonder enough.”</p><p>It was as Charlotte was speaking that Nettie’s eyes caught a hint of movement. She saw Gwen, peeking out from behind a piece of machinery, over by the panel of dials and switches. Nettie caught her breath as Gwen edged out into the open, with Sir Frederick distracted; she was fully in line of sight of the portal, but Charlotte did not react, merely staring down at her husband with mild disdain. Surely she must have seen Gwen, but she did not react to her presence or the way she was moving closer to the controls by inches.</p><p>Nettie bit her lip, nervous; she wanted to shout at Gwen, to tell her it was too dangerous, that she was putting herself at too much risk. But then Gwen did this sort of thing all the time, didn’t she? She and those two – three? – men who had come with her. They’d do anything to save one another.</p><p>And on the switchboard, there was that lever, the all important one in the middle. Nettie could see Gwen’s eyes fixed on it, and knew what she was trying to do. To turn the machine off.</p><p>But <em>oh</em>, it was risky. Nettie knew she herself wouldn’t have dared, that she wasn’t the sort who was made to be brave like that.</p><p>For the moment though, Sir Frederick still seemed distracted; indeed, he was pacing in front of the portal now, growing more red in the face with anger by the moment.</p><p>“At least allow me to see my children!” he hissed.</p><p>“Need I remind you, it’s the middle of the night. Ada and Maxwell are asleep, and I’ll not have Jane wake them for you when you’re in this state,” said Charlotte primly.</p><p>“Insolent woman. They are <em>my children!</em>” he snarled, then seemed to master himself, breathing out slowly. “Then, at least give me back the nodes,” he said, low under his breath. “Give me back the mechanical parts you have stolen from me, if you will not give me back my children!”</p><p>Charlotte folded her arms, looking down on him unmoved. “No. I am afraid I am using them.”</p><p>He sneered. “Using them? <em>Bah.</em> You have not the power source for the machine that I have. The nodes are useless to you.”</p><p>But at this, Charlotte smiled. “On the contrary,” she said. “How do you think I have been powering my travels? Frederick, I have been using the nodes and the machine much more efficiently than you are, you who must torture this sorry man. I have the power source they were originally coupled to… the power of the Rift, of which we knew nothing then.”</p><p>“<em>Rift</em>? What…?” he blinked, stopping his pacing and turning to face her. “Where <em>are</em> you?” he asked, sounding genuinely curious as he tried to peer through into the richly furnished room behind her.</p><p>But Charlotte only moved to stand in the middle of the portal. “I commend your effort, but you shan’t find me so easily, Frederick.” She smiled sweetly. “And if you do, I shall simply take the children, and the rest of my household, and we shall be gone before you reach us.”</p><p>“Why, you–”</p><p>But before he could react, Gwen lunged forward, towards the control panel. At the same moment Charlotte looked up, looking mildly intrigued, as though by a diverting entertainment of some kind. But Nettie only caught one more glimpse of her as Gwen wrenched the lever back down.</p><p>Even as Sir Frederick whirled around, fury in his eyes, there was the noise of the machines powering down; the glow faded from the machine, the electrical cracking and whirring dying away as Captain Harkness slumped down in his bonds, chin lolling onto his chest. Nettie couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead; he wasn’t visibly breathing, but given all she’d seen today she thought it hard to say for sure whether that meant anything anymore.</p><p>But at the same moment, Charlotte gave a little wave as the portal flickered, wavered, and blinked closed again.</p><p>Sir Frederick turned on Gwen, furious. “You! You have no right to–”</p><p>“Oh, mate, I have every right,” Gwen growled, brandishing her knife in one hand. “Because I’m Torchwood.”</p><p>“<em>Torchwood</em> – but…!”</p><p>“And more importantly,” she said, walking around in a circle so the workbench in the centre of the space was between them, “because that’s my friend’s life you’re using to power your machine. And I won’t <em>fucking</em> stand for that.”</p><p>Nettie could see Gwen’s eyes roam the workbench, scanning over the various tools laid out there and settling on a yard length of unused copper piping, as thick as her wrist.</p><p>“How dare you!” Sir Frederick exclaimed.</p><p>Gwen didn’t answer, but lunged for the piece of copper piping, at the same moment he did. But he got there first, grabbing up the heavy metal rod and swinging it in an arc at her. She yelled out in alarm, managing to pull her knife up and block the blow, just, sending it glancing off to one side. She stabbed at him with the knife, but he blocked it with a loud ring of metal.</p><p>Nettie gasped, as Gwen cut to the side and slashed his arm, bright red blood blooming against the white of his exposed shirt sleeve. In response he swung the copper piping in a wide arc, sending her reeling back, before darting around the end of the bench towards her. Behind them, Nettie could see Captain Harkness gasp in a huge breath, jerking upright in his bonds with utter confusion in his eyes, quickly turning to fear as he saw the scene in front of him, saw Gwen fighting. He began to rattle his bonds, but it was no good; despite the fact that the machine was off now, he still could not get free.</p><p>And worse, Sir Frederick was gaining ground on Gwen, as she tripped backwards while dodging a blow. Nettie realised she was biting her lip, terrified, as he swung at Gwen with the copper piping again; Gwen managed to dodge by a hair’s breadth and the piping hit one of the large coils with a deafening <em>clang</em>, that reverberated upwards into the stone dome.</p><p>Nettie had to help, she knew, but what could she do? She was just a girl who worked in the kitchens. She wasn’t like Gwen. Yet still, she found herself scrambling up onto the platform, almost without thinking, pressed in between two cabinets as she watched them fight with huge eyes, heart beating rabbit-quick in her chest.</p><p>She watched as Gwen spun, pushing herself off the metal, but she was already off balance. Thus, the stabbing blow that Nettie was sure was meant to strike him in the chest went off target, sinking deep into the muscle of his upper arm. He cried out in pain and fury, stumbling back and taking the knife with him, wrenching it from her hand still embedded in his arm and dropping the piping to the ground to roll across the floor.</p><p>“<em>You</em>...” He grasped at the knife hilt, fingers scrabbling at it; he seemed about to rip it out, but changed his mind at the last moment, running at Gwen instead. “<em>Torchwood</em>…” he puffed, face red and twisted into a furious mask. “I made a deal… my life’s great work… <em>Torchwood was not to interfere</em>…”</p><p>“Well, that’s bloody tough,” said Gwen, “when you hurt our own–”</p><p>But he didn’t allow her to get any further. At that moment, Carrington lunged at her with a furious yell, pinning her back against the column of the machine with his hands around her throat, blood pouring down his arm even as he squeezed. Gwen gasped, mouth opening and closing; behind her, Jack was yelling out in horror and rage, thrashing in his bonds, but it was futile; he was locked fast.</p><p>And in the midst of this scene, Nettie knew what she had to do. She found herself stepping forwards, as though acting in a dream. She was still terrified, the blood beating in her head, but she was also oddly calm with the certainty as she leaned down to pick up the piping off the grating floor. She grasped it with both hands, its weight making her sure.</p><p>For an instant her eyes met Gwen’s wide and terrified ones where she was pinned, gasping for air as Carrington strangled her, her face beginning to turn purple.</p><p>Nettie took a deep breath, and swung the piping at the back of his skull with all her strength.</p><p>It connected with a resounding <em>crack</em>. She gasped, instantly dropping the piping at the same moment as he swayed, letting go of Gwen and crumpling to the ground. A moment later Gwen gasped, slumping forward and rubbing at her neck, falling to her hands and knees and breathing in great gulps of air beside his crumpled form.</p><p>Immediately Nettie was beside her, sobbing and rubbing Gwen’s back, clinging to her. Gwen held her back as she panted with the shock, shushing her and wiping away her tears. Nettie thought, dimly, that perhaps it should be her comforting Gwen, not the other way around. She’s just saved Gwen, after all, and <em>oh, mercy, she’d killed him</em>. How could she go back to Nia and Ifan and Mari, the family she’d found for herself, after this? They’d never forgive her; how could they? She’d killed a man. She couldn’t even bring herself to glance down at his body, but there it was, a crumpled form in her peripheral vision , and she was breathing very hard and she couldn’t think, <em>and</em>–</p><p>And there was a sound, from a little way above. Nettie’s head darted up reflexively, at the same time as Gwen’s did. They were both in time to see the door of the laboratory opening, the solid metal door to the outside that they’d had such trouble with before.</p><p>Now, it swung open, unlocked at last. Standing in the round doorway was a woman in a maid’s uniform, holding a gun at her side.</p><p>“<em>Alice?</em>” breathed Nettie in utter confusion, as she made her way down the walkway to the centre of the lab.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0030"><h2>30. Chapter 30</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Warning for violence as per the previous chapter, and one somewhat gross/gory moment.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Gwen stood up as quickly as she could, her motions still a little clumsy from the shock. Still, she was steadier than Nettie, whom she had to help to her feet. She squeezed Nettie’s hands, pulling her into a brief, tight hug and giving her a kiss on the forehead. “You did the right thing, sweetheart. You were very brave, and you saved me. Thank you.”</p><p>Nettie nodded silently, seemingly too much in shock to speak.</p><p>Gwen sighed, wishing she could stay and comfort her a little more, but there were more urgent matters. And so she left Nettie, crossing the room to where the woman in the maid’s uniform who had just come in the door – Alice, Nettie had called her – was standing in front of Jack, peering down at him in bland curiosity.</p><p>Which would have set off enough alarm bells for Gwen on its own – Jack looked a mess, covered in bruises and burns, barely semi-conscious when the machine had been switched off – even if Jack hadn’t been staring back at her with unmistakable, wide-eyed fear.</p><p>“Um,” said Gwen, walking up beside her. “Gwen Cooper. And who might you be…?”</p><p>“Alice Guppy,” said the woman, straightening to stare Gwen down. “Torchwood. I don’t have the time or the inclination to keep up this pretense anymore, I’m afraid.” She gestured to her clothes. “So don’t ask me to get you anything from the kitchens.”</p><p>Gwen blinked. “Torchwood? <em>I’m</em> from Torchwood!”</p><p>Alice sighed deeply. “Oh, another one? From the future too, are you?”</p><p>“How–?”</p><p>“I met your friend upstairs, a Mister Jones. Running around with this era’s version of Harkness here.” She hooked a thumb at Jack, still lying half slumped in the chair.</p><p>“You saw Ianto?” said Gwen, at the same time as Jack sat up a little straighter, listening intently. “Wait, upstairs? Why is he there? I sent him back to the village! Is he okay?!?”</p><p>“He was when I last saw him,” she said, with a slight shrug. “And I daresay he’ll continue to be if he’s a fast runner.”</p><p>“What does that mean?” demanded Gwen.</p><p>“If… anything happens to Ianto…” Jack ground out.</p><p>“Oh, I’m sure he’ll be fine,” said Alice, dismissively. “He’s not my concern or my responsibility, though,” she said, eyes alight with fascination as she walked up to the machine, now powered down. “No, <em>this</em> is what I’m here for.” She put her hand on the glass centre column, almost reverently.</p><p>“It won’t work,” said Gwen hastily. “Not without Jack powering it. Take it to pieces, strip it for parts and ship them back to Cardiff, whatever, but help me get Jack out first.”</p><p>But Alice ignored her, still staring around the room almost hungrily; she’d put away her gun, but one hand was in the pocket of her apron.</p><p>“First thing’s first. Nettie, dear,” Alice said, turning to Nettie who was still standing frozen in the corner. “Come here for a moment, will you? I’ve got an important job for you.”</p><p>Nettie trotted over, mutely obedient in her shock, wiping tears from her eyes with the back of her sleeve.</p><p>Gwen wasted no time in using the distraction to bend down in front of Jack, pulling him into a hug made awkward by the fact that he was still tightly shackled. She touched his face. “Are you okay?”</p><p>He groaned, gave a pained smile. “Been better.”</p><p>She laughed, giving him another squeeze and a kiss on his sweaty forehead, carefully avoiding the pink, shiny-raw burns where the headband made contact. “There, it’s over now. We’re gonna get you out, yeah?” she said. “Just like I promised. Everything’ll be okay.” She peered at the steel bonds. “Hmm, there’s got to be some bolt cutters or something around here… maybe a welding torch...”</p><p>“What?!?” said Jack, sounding a little alarmed. “Can’t you just try and find the key?”</p><p>“Oh, yeah. That works too,” said Gwen, chuckling a little nervously. She felt exhausted, her throat hurting from being throttled, but still on edge with the leftover adrenaline. Still in fighting mode. She cast around the lab, seeing Carrington’s slumped body by the machine. “I bet he has it,” she said, beginning to stride over. “Let me just–”</p><p>But she broke off, her eyes widening in horror as she caught sight of Alice and Nettie.</p><p>Nettie was half collapsed in Alice’s arms, letting out a whimper; her eyelids fluttered, a look of terror in her eyes in her last moments of consciousness. Alice had something small and metal pressed into her arm, glinting in the bright lights of the lab.</p><p>Gwen ran over in alarm. “What did you do to her?!?” she all but screamed at Alice, as she lowered Nettie to the floor. She leaned over Nettie, patting the side of her face and cradling her hand. “If you’ve poisoned her…!”</p><p>“Nothing so dramatic,” scoffed Alice, rolling her eyes as she held up a hypodermic syringe attached to a small glass vial. On the side table was an open tin box with five more identical vials. “I would have thought a Torchwood operative would recognise a measure of Retcon and fast-acting sedative when she saw it.”</p><p>Gwen blinked, mouth opening and closing again. “Retcon,” she gabbled, “we put it in pills...”</p><p>“Well, that sounds inefficient,” said Alice.</p><p>But Gwen was already ignoring her, turning back to Nettie, stroking her hair.</p><p>“G-Gwen...” mumbled Nettie, looking terrified.</p><p>Gwen clutched Nettie’s hand, giving her a kiss on the back of the knuckles. “Ssshhh, love,” she said. “It’ll be okay. You won’t remember this... but maybe that’s better after all.”</p><p>“Did I… do wrong?”</p><p>Gwen’s heart ached; this might have been the right course of action, but she certainly didn’t feel good about it. Still, she clutched Nettie’s hand, arranging her so she was lying on the floor a little more comfortably, out of the main part of the lab. “No, darling. You did everything right. I told you you were brave, remember?”</p><p>Nettie opened her mouth as though trying to form words, but couldn’t. Already her eyes were closing as the sedative kicked in, and Gwen pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek. “Shhh,” she said. “Sleep.”</p><p>And by the time she drew away, Nettie was asleep.</p><p>With a sigh, Gwen got to her feet again, feeling weary herself. But she didn’t allow herself to falter. Instead, she marched back up to the central platform, where Alice was standing by the controls.</p><p>Gwen saw what she was about to do just a moment before it happened, and just a moment too late to prevent it.</p><p>Alice threw the lever, and the machine began to glow golden once more. The place where the portal had been began to ripple with golden light, throwing off smaller bursts of it all around just like before.</p><p>At the same time, current tore through Jack’s body, making him scream and convulse before slumping dead in his bonds again.</p><p>“What the hell are you doing?!” Gwen shouted at Alice.</p><p>“What I came here to do,” said Alice, her face lit by the golden glow of the portal.</p><p>“But Jack…!”</p><p>“He is doing what he was sent here to do too, not that we knew what that would be at the time,” said Alice. “And he’s about a hundred years late, I suppose. But he’ll do.”</p><p>Gwen almost flew at her there and then, but she turned to Jack instead, halfway to rushing to his side again. He was dead, still, but as she watched he jerked back to life, the current surging through his body once more. She ran over to him, but drew back in doubt, knowing she couldn’t touch. <em>Again</em>. Instead she glared, marching over to Alice. “You turn that machine off right now.”</p><p>But Alice had her hand on the lever, and in her other hand was her gun, raised and pointing at Gwen. “No,” she said. “Not until I’ve finished testing its capabilities, for Torchwood’s use.”</p><p>Gwen opened her mouth, ready to yell a string of obscenities at her, then closed it again in surprise as the portal opened once more.</p><p>This time the scene on the other side was different. It was clearly some kind of laboratory, but set up in a spacious converted sitting room, heavy hardwood shutters covering the high windows. It was still dark so the shutters were closed, but there was light, coming from soft gas lamps all around as a woman worked at a desk in the corner.</p><p>On the other side of her stood a familiar looking machine, a tall column of glass ringed by alien technology. Only this one was smaller, more compact-looking, and graced with a ring of exposed ceramic nodes. It seemed to be quiescent now.</p><p>As the portal opened, Charlotte Carrington stood up and leant against her desk with a sigh, her hands on her hips. “Frederick, must you continue to–” but she broke off, stepping closer cautiously and peering through at them. “Oh,” she said, in mild surprise. “You are not Frederick.”</p><p>“No,” said Alice, turning the gun on Charlotte. She still stood in front of the control panel, blocking Gwen’s access to it. “I’m Torchwood. Surrender your Rift Manipulator machine.”</p><p>Charlotte glared at her, unflinching. “Torchwood,” she said, disdainful. “I’ve heard of you.”</p><p>This seemed to catch Alice off guard. “You have?”</p><p>“Like my husband, I keep ears and eyes out. As a sensible precaution.” She glared. “Now, please leave me alone. I have work to do before the morning.” She peered over Alice’s shoulder, meeting Gwen’s eyes. “You there. Do something about this, would you?” She gestured to the whole situation.</p><p>“What?” said Gwen, affronted.</p><p>“I don’t know!” said Charlotte. “You seemed to be able to think of something before!”</p><p>“I...” but then Gwen gasped, as she saw something move out of the corner of her eye, by the base of the machine.</p><p>On their own side of the portal.</p><p>Frederick Carrington was stirring on the ground, groaning and dragging himself into a sitting position. It was then that Gwen realised that in the heat of the moment she’d never actually checked he was really dead. Oh, God, Ianto would make fun of her for that, Gwen thought. Still, it was far from the first thing on her mind as Carrington got to his feet, yelled out in fury, and hurled himself towards the portal.</p><p>He lunged, and stumbled forward past Alice. Gwen was halfway through shouting out in alarm as he dripped blood across the lab floor.</p><p>“Charlotte!” he snarled, ripping the knife out of his upper arm and brandishing it, bloody and glinting. “My… machine… the nodes…” he flung himself forward, half in the portal. Charlotte had grabbed a heavy wrench from the table beside her and was wielding it like a dagger of her own, but he just kept running, bareling on through the portal. Charlotte put her hand on his head, to stop him running forward, but they were essentially fighting for ground, half in half out of the golden loop of light.</p><p>“Help...” gritted out Charlotte, panting with the effort, eyes wide and scared as she looked up to meet Gwen’s. “I… don’t…. think I can...”</p><p>And then, Gwen had a sudden flash of inspiration. Running to the control panel, she shoved Alice aside hard with the side of her body, catching her by surprise and knocking her to the ground. Her gun skittered away across the floor, coming to rest at the base of the machine. But Gwen wasn’t paying attention to her, as she took one more look over her shoulder at the portal. Charlotte was still pushing her husband back through it, furious and grabbing for her, slashing with the knife. He was gaining ground, his body halfway in and halfway out of the portal.</p><p>Gwen gritted her teeth, steeling herself.</p><p>And threw the lever.</p><p>Then she backed away as fast as she could, ending up near Jack. The machine powered down once more, the portal sparking, flaring… and closing with a quiet <em>pop</em>. Which was immediately followed by a muffled thump, as something heavy fell to the floor.</p><p>It was Carrington’s body, or at least the lower half of it.</p><p>It was almost surreal, to see the clean cut about halfway up his torso, at a slight angle. His head, arms and chest had been on the other side of the portal when it closed, and had been sheared off as though by a huge, impossibly sharp knife.</p><p>The remaining part of his body lay slumped on the ground, in a spreading pool of blood that dripped down through the boards.</p><p>There was a long, ringing silence. Gwen let out her breath, a little shaken as she leaned back against one of the cabinets near Jack.</p><p>“Hah,” she heard him say beside her, voice ragged and weak. “And we thought our fake marriage had problems.”</p><p>Gwen laughed, weary and relieved, as she brought a hand down to ruffle the part of Jack’s hair she could reach. “Puts things into perspective really,” she agreed.</p><p>“You did good, Gwen,” Jack said, before his eyes widened in alarm, staring at something past her. “<em>Gwen!</em>”</p><p>She whirled, to see what he was looking at. Alice was pulling herself up, eyes casting around, before alighting on the control panel and the lever again.</p><p>“Oh no you don’t!” snarled Gwen. She’d had a sudden idea, her eyes going to the side table where the box of vials still sat open, where Alice had left it. Beside it was the syringe, and Gwen fumbled for it, nearly pricking her own finger before – <em>yes!</em> – she had it in her hands, fitting a new vial to the syringe and holding it behind her, out of sight as she approached Alice.</p><p>“Now,” said Alice, giving her a tight smile, “we’ve had several tiresome distractions, but I think it’s time the real work began.”</p><p>“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” said Gwen smoothly, as she punched her in the shoulder with the syringe in her hand, sinking it through her dress and deep into the muscle of her arm.</p><p>Alice frowned for a moment, her eyes widening as she turned to Gwen. “What did you… <em>oh</em>...” she said, and then swayed on her feet. Gwen caught her before she collapsed on top of the control panel, lowering her to the ground and holding onto her. Alice’s face twitched in slackening fury as she stared up at Gwen. “<em>You… don’t… know… what… you’ve… done</em>...”</p><p>“Oh, I think I know very well what I’ve done,” smiled Gwen, patting Alice’s arm none too gently. “Time to take a little nap and forget any of this ever happened, yeah? Don’t worry, we’ll leave a note for your boss at Torchwood, telling her just what happened here. And if it leaves out some key pieces of information, I don’t suppose it’ll affect the future too much… I should know, after all.”</p><p>“<em>You</em>...” Alice had her teeth gritted, hands bunched in the fabric of Gwen’s dress. “Torchwood will…”</p><p>“Remember this? I don’t think so,” she said cheerily. “Sleep well, Alice.”</p><p>Alice tried to snap back at her, but couldn’t get the words out as her head slumped to one side, the sedative taking its effect.</p><p>Gwen breathed out as Alice went slack in her arms, standing up and surveying the scene around her. It was a grisly one, with the remains of Carrington’s body spilling out a pool of blood everywhere.</p><p>Still, she had to go into his pockets for the keys, she knew. She had to free Jack, clean this mess up. And there was still the matter of how they were going to get home.</p><p>But the worst was over, she knew.</p><p>Still, she looked up at Jack, smiling at him. He raised his head, semi-conscious, and smiled back.</p><hr/><p>Ifan paced the courtyard, nervous, as he had been for the last half hour; where was everyone? He’d been down to ask in the kitchens, but Bethan, Joseph, and Mrs Lewis were the only ones there, and they were all in a tizzy. Mister Watkins, Alice, and Nettie hadn’t been seen for hours apparently, along with Sir Frederick and his guests.</p><p>But there was only one part of that he’d cared about. He’d been afraid ever since he saw that strange gold light that something might happen to Nettie, but now he was terrified. What if he’d come back too late to help her?</p><p>For that matter, what had happened here? Clearly, it was something. He was about to start searching the house – not that he had any idea where to start – when he saw the outer door open, light spilling out into the courtyard. Two people walked out, their forms oddly bulky.</p><p>No, three people, he realised in alarm. The two of them were holding a limp body between them.</p><p>Ifan’s eyes widened in fear, as they began to walk towards him.</p><p>“Ifan Jones!” he heard a voice boom across the courtyard, and he recognised the strident American tones of Captain Harkness from earlier. “Just the man we need!”</p><p>This did nothing to reassure Ifan. But he was barely listening, as he saw the Captain come forward, his wife at his side.</p><p>Cradled in the Captain’s arms was Nettie. She was slumped and not moving, and Ifan yelled out in alarm, his caution of a moment ago forgotten.</p><p>“It’s okay, Ifan,” said the Captain’s wife, touching his arm as he peered down at Nettie in the half darkness. “She’s not dead. She’s just, um, had a little bump on the head. She’s been given some medicine for it. She’ll sleep until morning.”</p><p>“She might not remember much of tonight,” said the Captain, as the two of them helped him place Nettie gently into the back of the coach. “That kind of head injury can do that sometimes. But she’ll make a full recovery.”</p><p>Ifan raised his head, tearing his gaze away from Nettie to look between the two of them. Nettie’s skin was still warm, her pulse beating slowly in her wrist as he clutched her hand, and he could see the small clouds of her breath mingling with theirs. “She’ll be all right?” he said, hardly daring to hope.</p><p>The Captain smiled, and nodded. It was then that Ifan noticed both he and his wife looked terrible, sooty and bruised up, with torn and bloodied clothes.</p><p>“She was very, very brave,” his wife said, stroking the stray hair back from Nettie’s forehead. “Take her back to the village, okay? Look after her.”</p><p>He nodded, shaking both their hands fiercely. “Always.”</p><p>“Good lad,” she said, with an indulgent smiled. The two of them looked at one another. “Oh, and if you see Ianto, tell him...” she looked up at the Captain, as though for ideas.</p><p>“Tell him its over,” the Captain said, with a slight smile. “Tell him to stay safe, and we’ll be there soon.”</p><p>Ifan nodded. “I can do that.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0031"><h2>31. Chapter 31</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ianto stared up at Jack, who was looking rather alarmed. Jack glanced back over his shoulder towards the approaching lanterns, then back down at him.</p><p>“Jack, what–”</p><p>“Quick, play dead!” said Jack.</p><p>“...<span>W</span><span>ait, w</span><span>hat?</span>”</p><p>“Play dead!” he hissed. “Watkins was sent after you. Constable Roberts is coming; he’s in Carrington’s pay. If I can convince him you’re dead they’ll leave you alone!”</p><p>“They’ve seen us already!”</p><p>“They’re far away still. Maybe I can convince the constable I tried to revive you, but it didn’t work...”</p><p>“For God’s sake, you really don’t know the different between a kiss and CPR and never have done, have – <em>ahh</em>...”</p><p>His words were cut off as Jack kissed him again, crushing their lips together hard and breathless, before glancing back over his shoulder again. His hands were forceful on Ianto’s upper arms, pressing him down into the muddy ground. “I said <em>p</em><em>lay dead!</em>” growled Jack. “That means stop moving!”</p><p>“What are you, twelve years old? When has playing dead ever worked?”</p><p>“It works pretty often for me!”</p><p>“That’s because usually you <em>are</em> dead!”</p><p>“And you’re not, yet… let’s try and keep it that way, yeah?”</p><p>“This is the worst plan. You’re an idiot.”</p><p>Jack smirked, looking infuriatingly pleased with himself. “You love me really.”</p><p>Before Ianto could think of anything even vaguely face-saving to reply to this with though, Jack was patting his cheek again.</p><p>“Now, stay still. Try not to breathe too obviously.”</p><p>Ianto blinked, mind racing; he could feel the shivering beginning in earnest, teeth starting to chatter. “I don’t know if I can–”</p><p>“Just try!” hissed Jack, leaning close over him as though he was about to kiss him again, back to the approaching villagers. “I’ll try to cover it by pretending to resuscitate you–”</p><p>“Any excuse to kiss me, hmm?”</p><p>“You’re one to talk!” hissed Jack, but he was grinning. “Look, just go along with it, okay? If they notice anything I’ll… improvise.”</p><p>“Very reassuring,” Ianto managed to grit out through chattering teeth, but a moment later he lay back in Jack’s arms, forcing himself to breathe as slowly as possible, trying to will away the shivering.</p>
<hr/><p>Jack darted a glance over his shoulder, towards where the small crowd of villagers was hurrying over, some carrying lanterns. He could see Constable Roberts in the lead, and leaned over Ianto again, giving him a quick kiss on the lips. Ianto kissed him back, but true to his word, stayed as still as he could. It was all Jack could do to pull himself away, before the constable got too close.</p><p>Still, he got to his feet, running up to the constable before he could get too close to Ianto on the bank.</p><p>“Keep everyone back,” ordered Jack. “A man has died, by drowning in the river…. Mister Ianto Jones, visiting from Cardiff. I tried to revive him, but I was too late.”</p><p>“Very well. Move aside then, Mister Harkness.”</p><p>“That’s <em>Captain</em>, actually,” he said, not liking the way this man was looking at him. “US naval officer, on leave.” It was his usual cover story in this century, before the Royal Air Force existed. The sort engineered to be both vague and difficult to easily verify, while still projecting some sense of authority. “I’m perfectly capable of handling this situation, thank you.”</p><p>“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” said the constable, sounding like he very much did doubt it. He was squaring up to Jack and trying to peer curiously over his shoulder, as Jack gestured for the little crowd of people to keep back. “But I will need to report it to the coroner in Aberdare, get all the papers written up proper, you know. And Sir Frederick–”</p><p>“Will want to know that a man died on his land, yes,” said Jack, emphatically. “Why don’t you go send a runner to tell him, and I’ll deal with the body.” He tried to subtly move to block the constable’s view of Ianto, still lying on the ground.</p><p>“Very well, you may help me carry him.” Before Jack could protest, the constable was grasping Ianto’s head and shoulders. Jack winced, as he thought he saw Ianto give a quick, involuntary tremble, and lifted up Ianto’s legs.</p><p>Jack craned around to a man at the head of the group, coming up behind them. “Clear everyone away, the constable and I have this in hand.”</p><p>“That we do,” said Roberts, rather tightly, as he helped Jack carry Ianto along the river bank. After a few minutes the were just coming up on the wooden gate into the village in the shadow of the mill buildings, where the path turned from muddy grass to the packed dirt of the one street in town. They were alone now, the villagers all running back at the constable’s word; perhaps the people here knew not to meddle in the affairs of the sorts of people who visited the castle, Jack thought.</p><p>“I’ll need to go to my room at the Foxhole Inn to send a message to the castle,” said the constable, as the lanterns bobbed in the distance, lights being lit at a few windows too. “Let’s set him down in the stables for now, before I summon a constabulary coach to take him back to Aberdare. Then–”</p><p>The constable broke off, the silence filling Jack with dread colder than the river water.</p><p>Roberts paused, as he watched Ianto shudder, twitch… and sneeze explosively.</p><p>Jack caught his breath, as the constable raised his head, eyes alight. “He’s not dead,” he whispered, slowly. He dropped Ianto’s upper half to the ground, then slapped his face, making his eyelids flicker. He pressed his fingers to feel the pulse in Ianto’s throat before looking up at Jack, a dangerous look of triumph on his pinched features. “You lied to me, Captain.”</p><p>Jack gritted his teeth, laying Ianto’s legs down gently, hand going slowly beneath his coat to his gun. The powder would be wet from his fall into the water, but maybe he could use it to scare this man anyway. God, he hated this century. Jack drew, staring down the barrel of his gun at the man standing over Ianto, casting a moon shadow across his face. “Constable… don’t make me do something I’ll regret. No, sorry, that <em>you’ll</em> regret, because I won’t regret it one bit.”</p><p>“Oh, I think you might,” said Roberts, standing up, all pretense gone. “See, Captain, I may be just a country policeman… I’m sure you fancy city types think nothing of me. But I’ve got a powerful friend, up in the castle. All in the interest of keeping the local order, you know.” He grinned. “And Sir Frederick asked me to tell him about anything like this. He was very specific about it… about Mister Jones here in particular.”</p><p>At this, Jack squeezed the trigger. But it only clicked, the powder too damp to strike. Hearing this, Ianto dropped his pretense and scrambled to his feet, throwing a punch at the constable. But Ianto must have been still clumsy and uncoordinated from the cold, breathing hard and ragged, because Roberts managed to sidestep and use Ianto’s own momentum to push him up against the stone wall of the mill building, wrenching his arm back behind him until he gasped out in pain. “<em>You</em>,” he said, taking out a pair of cuffs and unlocking them, “are under arrest, but you’ll be taking a little trip up the castle first, to see Sir Frederick since he seemed so interested. And as for <em>you</em>, Captain–”</p><p>His words were interrupted by the click of someone cocking a weapon, and another voice, speaking from the village gate. Jack froze, just on the point of throwing himself at the constable to try to tackle him to the ground, and looked to the source of the noise.</p><p>“Leave them be, you bastard.”</p><p>The voice was a woman’s, her English slightly halting, her Welsh accent very thick, but he recognised it immediately. Sure enough, there was the barmaid from the Foxhole Inn; Mari Jones, he remembered her name was. She was holding a sawn-off shotgun, aiming it at the constable’s head with a glare that could strip paint.</p><p>Slowly, Roberts raised his hands, stepping away from Ianto and Jack. “I am an officer of the law...” he began.</p><p>“A corrupt one,” said Jack.</p><p>Mari just made a derisive sound that needed no translation and gestured with the shotgun towards the village, adding something in hurried Welsh. The constable glared at her, responding in the same language. They seemed to be having a heated argument, the constable looming over the short and stocky barmaid, but she stood in front of him with her shotgun like a rock in a stream, refusing to be intimidated as she gestured at Ianto and Jack.</p><p>In the intervening time Ianto had surreptitiously edged over to stand next to Jack. He was still shivering violently, but he was watching this exchange with curious fascination.</p><p>“My Welsh isn’t the best,” confessed Ianto, through chattering teeth. “But, I think she’s telling him to go send a message to the castle, telling them I’m dead. Or, um, she’ll kill him.”</p><p>“Sounds good to me,” said Jack, as they watched the constable give a resigned nod.</p><p>Sure enough, Mari gestured at the two of them. “Come,” she said in English. “Back to the pub.”</p><p>Ianto exchanged a look with Jack. “Back to the pub,” agreed Jack, nodding emphatically.</p>
<hr/><p>Once they were back in the warmth of the Foxhole Inn, Mari had marched the constable up the stairs and locked him in his room at the end of the upstairs corridor, with a number of threats that Ianto’s Welsh wasn’t good enough to catch. Afterwards, though, she came up to him on the narrow wooden stairs, pressing his hands together between hers. After a rather convoluted conversation in a disjointed mixture of Welsh and English, Ianto went back into the common room to find Jack pacing and dripping river water onto the floorboards from the hem of his coat, as Nia peeked with shy curiosity out of the kitchen door.</p><p>Mari gave Ianto a last smile and a chuck under the chin, before running over to Nia, talking to her in a hushed voice as Ianto the cat darted over to wind around their legs.</p><p>Meanwhile, Ianto went over to Jack. “I think she appropriately intimidated him,” he said. “He promised to tell everyone that I died in the water.” He thought of the newspaper article. “I think the story gets a little lost in translation, but we should be okay.”</p><p>“Are you sure?”</p><p>“Pretty sure,” he said.</p><p>Jack frowned. “Why did she help you, though? Can you trust her?”</p><p>“I… I think so,” said Ianto thoughtfully, looking over at Mari, who was hugging Nia tightly, the shotgun leaning up against the bar. He smiled slightly. “My Welsh isn’t up to much, but I think she said… I reminded her a bit of her own boy.”</p><p>Jack smiled too, about to say something But instead he raised his head, looking past Ianto towards the door. “Oh! Speak of the devil!”</p><p>Sure enough, when Ianto turned around he saw Ifan burst into the pub, carrying an apparently unconscious woman in her arms.</p><p>“Who’s–” began Ianto.</p><p>“<em>Nettie!</em>” Nia shouted out in alarm, bursting out of the kitchen and running over to the two of them. They watched as Ifan put Nettie down into a chair by the hearth, then reassured his mother and sister in fast, quiet Welsh, stilling Nia’s nervous pacing with a hand on her arm.</p><p>“Well,” said Ianto, turning back to Jack. “Something’s been going on at the castle, at any rate.”</p><p>“Hmm,” said Jack, frowning. “I wonder if–”</p><p>“Um, excuse me, Sirs?”</p><p>They both turned, seeing Ifan come over to join them.</p><p>“Oh,” Ifan said, frowning deeply as his eyes landed on Jack. “But… how can you be… pardon, I could’ve sworn you were just at the castle...”</p><p>“I have an identical twin brother, also called Captain Harkness” said Jack with a grin, making Ianto stifle a snort. “What’s been going on?”</p><p>“Um...” he looked between them, turning to Ianto. “Mister Jones, I’ve got a message for you. From, uh… I suppose, the other Captain Harkness? And his wife.”</p><p>“Oh,” said Ianto, as Jack did a slight double take at the word <em>wife</em>. “Of course.”</p><p>“They told me to tell you… it’s over. That you should stay safe, and they’ll be here soon.”</p><p>Ianto let out his breath. “Thank you, Ifan,” he said, genuine in his gratitude. “Thank you so much.”</p><p>Ifan nodded, then looked them both up and down in consternation. That made Ianto remember how cold he was, and how they were both still dripping on the floorboards.</p><p>“If you’d like to go back up to your rooms...” said Ifan, a little awkwardly.</p><p>Ianto looked at Jack, who was looking back at him with an undercurrent of heat in his gaze. “Yeah,” he said, a slow smile crossing his face. “We’d best get out of these wet things.”</p><p>“In a moment,” said Ianto, barely resisting the impulse to rip Jack’s clothes off him right here, now that he felt safe in the knowledge that his own version of Jack was safe, that it was over.</p><p>“Excellent, um,” said Ifan beside them; he’d gone slightly pink, as he looked from one of them to the other, “I’ll just uh, leave you gentlemen alone now, then...”</p><p>“Wait, Ifan,” said Ianto, as Ifan turned to leave.</p><p>Ifan turned back. “Yes? Is there something else you need, Sir?”</p><p>Ianto tore his gaze away from Jack’s, to smile at Ifan. “No, nothing. I’m just… glad you’re alright.”</p><p>Ifan smiled, big and carefree. “Thank you, Sir. I’m glad you are too. You look like you’ve been through the wars.”</p><p>“Right,” said Ianto, biting his lip. “Only, um. I think I might have just… faked… <em>your</em> death? So, ah, sorry about that...”</p><p>Ifan frowned. “What do you mean, Sir?”</p><p>“Don’t worry about it,” said Ianto hastily, as Jack tried to hold back a laugh. “I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough.”</p><p>“Um...” said Ifan.</p><p>“It’s okay,” said Jack, rooting through his coat pocket before pressing a coin into Ifan’s hand. “For your trouble. Now, go be with your family. We’ll catch you up later.”</p><p>Ifan nodded, face clearing. “Thank you, Sir.”</p><p>And then with a final bow, he left them to go back to Nia, Nettie, and his mother.</p><p>Which left Ianto with Jack. He quirked a smile, enjoying the burning heat of Jack’s gaze on him. “Well,” he said. “It all seems to be over. What do you say to taking his advice, and making use of that room you have?”</p><p>Jack grinned, discretely putting his hand under Ianto’s wet jacket and splaying his fingers against his waist. “I definitely wouldn’t say no to that.”</p>
<hr/><p>Ianto had no idea how they even made it up the stairs. Certainly a lot of self-control was needed to get them to the right door and unlock it, along with almost more composure than Ianto had left.</p><p>As soon as the door was closed and bolted behind them they were reaching for each other, cold-clumsy hands tugging at buttons and buckles; Jack’s coat ended up in a wet heap on the floor, soaking the wooden boards, but for once Ianto didn’t have a thought to spare. He was freezing, and exhausted, still keyed up with the adrenaline his body had pumped him full of to survive falling into the frigid waters, and impatient for it. More than anything he wanted Jack, tearing off his shirt and putting his cold hands on Jack’s chest, digging his fingers into the flesh of his back and making Jack whine in the back of his throat.</p><p>Jack reciprocated in kind, peeling off Ianto’s wet clothes, impatient yet somehow reverent as he bore Ianto down to the narrow single bed. Though Ianto was still freezing, his extremities partly numb, Jack’s eternally burning body heat and the racing of Ianto’s blood was doing a good job bringing him back to normal again. Jack’s body was like a furnace against Ianto’s cold skin; the return of sensation almost burned in places, mingling with the dizzying swoop of arousal he felt with the scrape of Jack’s teeth on his throat, Jack’s warm, strong hands on his body familiar and yet different in ways Ianto couldn’t quite put a name to.</p><p>Not that he was thinking very hard about it, at present. For the moment, all there was was the two of them, here, for as long as they were able to have this.</p><p>Everything else, Ianto thought in between kisses, could wait until later.</p>
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